DEHRADUN: A team of researchers at IIT-Roorkee has developed a disinfection box that can be used for sterilizing a wide variety of personal belongings including medical equipment, Personal Protection Equipment, apparels among others, against coronavirus.
“As the world strives to return to normalcy amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, this device will be a step forward in ensuring safety. It is easy to use and will be useful for disinfecting items in public places” said Prof. Ajit K Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee.
Termed as the ‘Unisaviour’ box, it comprises a metal coated with specially- designed highly reflective geometry to allow the calibrated passage of UVC light to disinfect personal belongings.
The device has been developed by a team of researchers at IIT Roorkee led by Professor Soumitra Satapathi, Laboratory of Integrated Nanophotonics and Biomaterials.
The box has an internal coating of indigenously- developed metal oxide along with herbal anti-bacterial and anti-viral layers to prevent the growth of microorganisms when UVC light is not in use.
The user-friendly device comes with an additional safety switch for UVC light.
The ‘Unisaviour’ box is equipped with an Arduino-programmed system to control the time exposure and intensity of UVC light, that aids in the sterilization of various personal belongings.
“The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the significance of maintaining overall hygiene to reduce the transmission risk of the disease. The sterilizing system will aid the disinfection of various personal belongings and can be easily deployed at public places such as malls, cinema halls among others to maintain the highest standard of hygiene,” said Prof. Satapathi, Associate Professor of Physics, IIT Roorkee.
Other team members in this research included Ph.D. students, Mr. Prathul Nath, Mr. Naveen Kumar Tailor, Ms. Tejasvini Sharma, Mr. Anshu Kumar from Dept of Physics and Mr. Neeladri Singh Das and Prof. Partha Roy from Department of Biotechnology.
The team has already filed a patent for this innovation.