NEW DELHI: As a preventive measure against coronavirus, IIT and AIIMS alumni Debayan Saha and Shashi Ranjan have developed a device called ‘Airlens Minus Corona’ that will travel on streets to sterilise the city. It will go to hospitals, bus stops, railway stations, shopping malls and other public places to sterilise the surfaces which may spread the coronavirus.
According to the duo, the power lies in electrifying water droplets to kill coronavirus. They invented a way to kill the virus using charged or ionised water droplets. Water droplets can be ionised using ‘Corona Discharge’. Such ionised water droplets can help in the oxidation of viral proteins into non-harmful molecules. Oxidation is one of the most potent antimicrobial tools.
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This technique can potentially sterilise the entire city, they said. There are several ways by which viruses can be inactivated - alcohol (such as ethanol) is one of them and alcohol-based hand sanitisers are useful for individuals or for sanitising surfaces on a smaller scale but insufficient in such an emergency. With a solution naming this technology as Airlens Minus Corona (-Corona), it clears up the coronavirus using the electrical energy of corona - ‘Fighting Corona With Corona’.
Previous inventions by the two
Earlier, the duo of Debayan Saha and Shashi Ranjan had invented devices like PM Minus 2.5 to help curb vehicular pollution. Saha, claimed that one car fitted with the device would neutralise pollution emitted from 10 cars.