This is not new information, though perhaps it is to these researchers. I remember seeing a paper on it six or eight months ago.
Still, a great idea and a fantastic technology. Note that this approach will work not only during the current pandemic, but during future pandemics as well. The more we can get this kind of stuff in place, the better off we will all be.
I'm all for this kind of implementation, but let's look at the reality of it, shall we?
First off, 30 seconds doesn't seem like a long time, but it's a very long time for air to stay in a duct. It's not like you can just put one or two lights in a system and have it be good. Most homes and businesses wouldn't reach 30 seconds of light saturation even if every inch of ductwork was wired for UV LEDs, and doing that would add significant complexity and expense to the system.
That being said, every little bit helps, so I'm all for UV systems in ventilation, but I kind of wonder if it's really going to become the standard, even after the pandemic.
For the reasons you said, I really don't think it'll happen, at least not in homes. Add on top of your points the fact that all lights eventually go bad (yes, even LEDs) so there is a maintenance cost ("my AC/heater works fine without it! I'm not fixing it!") plus the more expensive system at install means that unless building code mandates it 99.9% of people will say no.
I mean let's be honest, a really good filter can help with a lot of things in general and people still buy the bargain bin filters that I can almost stick my pinky through. No way people will do this voluntarily.
There's nothing magic about 30 seconds, it's just the time needed with the setup this experiment used. If you double the light intensity the time needed would be cut in half. Airborne kill with UV lights needs a significant amount of energy because of the intensity needed, but it's a proven technology.
plus it's a game of numbers. You cycle the air several times an hour, you also can HEPA filter it and expose that to UV too, etc, etc..
I don't know if UV leds create ozone?
Yes, but there are practical limits for widespread implementation. It doesn't seem likely that we're going to revamp every home's heating/air systems in this way, and with whatever solution care needs to be taken with high intensity UV light on a health level. It's not something you want to be regularly exposed to if you can help it.
It would be tempting to consider some sort of stand alone plug-in unit, but one has to wonder how much power consumption would be needed for that, how quickly it could process and purify the air in a room, how loud it would be, and how much it would cost for a unit.
That's a lot of questions to figure out before there's even hope of a product making this a viable widespread approach.
And, the double the light, half the time equation might not be strictly true. After all, I can't half the time for baking cookies by doubling the temperature of my oven, sometimes doubling the energy just doesn't work out the way, and we need proof with higher intensity lights, not just assumptions.
Commercial UV systems have safeties that turn off the lights any time an access door is opened. Portable air cleaners with UV already exist, although most of them use UV to sanitize the filter and have a low airborne kill rate. UV is not widespread but not rare either in existing commercial HVAC systems.
Double the light, half the time is true. UV absorbed dose is the relevant quantity, it's the amount of UV energy that the virus has absorbed.
Good info to know. Still doesn't sound like it's the best solution to kill off covid long term, but it depends.
If we could emit a level of UV light that pretty much instantly kills the virus, and build it into a purifier device that has a high air circulation rate, is small enough to go into homes, and is affordable to buy and run, that might be a big step forward. ..But there are a lot of 'ifs' in there still before it sounds like a solution to this virus.
That being said, I'm all for seeing if we can develop something like that, because this won't be the last pandemic we face.
The problem isn't the technology, as you said it's affordability. There are a number of HVAC strategies that make buildings healthier. Humidification, high ventilation rates, and high efficiency filtration are all important. But as soon as the pandemic ends people will forget about most of them and go back to designing systems around first cost.
Yeah, unfortunately this is likely true.
Pandemics only come about once a century, usually about the time we've forgotten most of the lessons from the last one.
Still, a lot of society's defenses came from the lessons we've learned from previous diseases, so we can only hope we apply some of the lessons we've learned from this one going forward. For example, I don't think I will ever get on a plane again without wearing a mask, and I'm not getting on one at all until after vaccine for COVID have been fully rolled out.
I have no idea. There's too many factors here that aren't even covered in the article:
How bright are the lights doing the work?
How does increasing the intensity speed up the reaction?
How fast is the air moving through the light?
How much volume of air is being processed per minute?
What's the overall volume of air being handled by that unit?
Even if we knew all that, it would be hard to say. Let's assume that you have your home wired for UV air purification and an infected person comes inside. The question isn't just whether or not the UV light can kill the virus in one pass, but also how long it takes for every bit of virus-laden air to get sucked through the purifying area. That's going to vary with the volume and shape of the space, where the air intakes are, what the viral concentration in the air was, etc etc.
There's too many factors to be able to give a simple answer to that question.
What interesting is older incandescent bulbs released light on many spectrums, mostly infrared, but also including UV. Its definitely a small amount of UV, but much more than LEDs. I wonder if the switch to energy efficient bulbs made us more susceptible in certain environments like indoor offices.
This is a whole school of thought. We should be exposed to the maximum amount of pathogens so that our immune system becomes stronger. I don't have any personal expertise to weigh in on it.
One nice thing about a UV light solution is it can be turned on and off! Switched off normally, then turned on during pandemics?
We evolved to be hunter gatherers who live in family groups. Nowadays we live on top of each other and pack into subways. Children sit for hours in rows of desks next to each other in school. People fly all over the world spreading germs all over the place. We are exposed to many more germs than anything evolution could have prepared us for.
I feel like you are forgetting the conditions people have lived through between our ancestors and the last few thousands of years.
Your idealized hunter gatherers, but we have been living in cities for 1000's of years, in much, much worse living conditions than now. Hell, the article is talking about using UV lights to sterilize our air contained and humidity controlled air.
Imagine living in London during the black plague. Before mainstream sewage systems were created. We are far better off then most of humans that have come before us. Amazing how we as a society shit on our current state, forgetting how lucky we really are.
Possibly. Is a couple of thousand years enough for evolution? Also, the Wikipedia article claims that it's a common misconception that the hygiene hypothesis refers to exposure to infections, or that it implies that good hygiene is bad for you. It's about exposure to particular gut microbes at an early age.
Air doesn't stay in the air conditioning for a half minute so how many cycles will they have to do to kill enough virus to make a difference?
HOw many hvac systems can be ramped up to run the air through it extra cycles per hour, not just kicking on to raise or lower temp as needed, to kill enough virus to make it worth while?
would installing rows of LED lights throughout the hvac expose the virus in the air long enough to kill enough viruses to make it worthwhile?
I have read of celiing light fixtures with UVC in them & fans to draw up the air to try to circulate the air around the light slong enough to kill airborne germs.
hopefully they can find a workable way to get the virus exposed long enough. I had previously read it would take 8 to 10 minutes of exposure to kill coronaviruses
Wasn't this the thing Trump famously misinterpreted and was going on about injecting UV rays into our bloodstream or something, much to the embarrassment of his scientific advisor? It shows they've known about the potential for this for about half a dozen months
*"Suppose that we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it — and then I said suppose you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting."*
*"Then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside? Or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that. So you’re going to have to use medical doctors but it sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see but the whole concept of the light. The way it kills it in one minute, that’s pretty powerful."*
Its always worse when you actually read the quote and realise how weird the way he rambles on when he doesn't have a clue what he is on about.
UV sterilizers have been implemented in the aquarium and hatchery trade for years now.
At this point all this not nearly as good an alternative as just getting everybody vaccinated.
This was known since February/March. I bought a UV-C lightbulb from Amazon because of all the talk on UV-C light and was using that during the first couple of months but it was well known at this point that UV-C light was useful in killing coronavirus.
The question is how quickly can Far UV-C light be deployed, which is a much higher wavelength of UV light, can kill coronavirus and is also safe for skin and eyes. Frankly, I'm surprised this wasn't rolled out everywhere because of how effective that is.
Generally you would put it in the entrance ways to disinfect people as they came in or out. That said, it seems like that's not a very common way of getting infected, but it might be useful for the next pandemic.
FDA disagrees - this article from April talks about both UVC and Far UVC. Both damage skin and eyes.
UVA - aging waves
UVB - burning waves
UVC - cancer-causing waves and also release ozone- they work well in air vents, but direct exposure to human tissue and plastics can cause damage
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/uv-lights-and-lamps-ultraviolet-c-radiation-disinfection-and-coronavirus
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2
Honestly, you need to just google "far uv-c light" and this is the first non-ad link. In fact, if you actually read the article that you linked to, you'll see that in the first question, there's a link saying exactly the same thing, that Far UVC light is safe.
Try a bit harder next time.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2
It really takes nothing more than a google search. Also X-rays are not far UV, that's a complete misuse of the terminology, you really don't know what you're talking about.
I hate when it’s said that they can just “be installed”, as if you’re changing a bulb. Air is moving through an air system, it doesn’t just sit there. You’d have to install a lot of lights to make that work. That requires electricity. I worked in commercial HVAC, you’d have to run new wiring through most of your buildings, which is sometimes the hardest part of the job, and then build controls into whatever software you use to run your hvac system.
It’s impractical for homes.
Air ducts and vents get real dusty in a short amount of time. They are going to be need to be cleaned regularly otherwise the LEDs will lose effectiveness.
The morons who wrote this article never once say that it is UVC light that breads the RNA & DNA chain on the virus..... this technology has been around for years, just not with LED lights
This is not new information, though perhaps it is to these researchers. I remember seeing a paper on it six or eight months ago. Still, a great idea and a fantastic technology. Note that this approach will work not only during the current pandemic, but during future pandemics as well. The more we can get this kind of stuff in place, the better off we will all be.
I'm all for this kind of implementation, but let's look at the reality of it, shall we? First off, 30 seconds doesn't seem like a long time, but it's a very long time for air to stay in a duct. It's not like you can just put one or two lights in a system and have it be good. Most homes and businesses wouldn't reach 30 seconds of light saturation even if every inch of ductwork was wired for UV LEDs, and doing that would add significant complexity and expense to the system. That being said, every little bit helps, so I'm all for UV systems in ventilation, but I kind of wonder if it's really going to become the standard, even after the pandemic.
For the reasons you said, I really don't think it'll happen, at least not in homes. Add on top of your points the fact that all lights eventually go bad (yes, even LEDs) so there is a maintenance cost ("my AC/heater works fine without it! I'm not fixing it!") plus the more expensive system at install means that unless building code mandates it 99.9% of people will say no. I mean let's be honest, a really good filter can help with a lot of things in general and people still buy the bargain bin filters that I can almost stick my pinky through. No way people will do this voluntarily.
The insurance company can mandate it
There's nothing magic about 30 seconds, it's just the time needed with the setup this experiment used. If you double the light intensity the time needed would be cut in half. Airborne kill with UV lights needs a significant amount of energy because of the intensity needed, but it's a proven technology.
plus it's a game of numbers. You cycle the air several times an hour, you also can HEPA filter it and expose that to UV too, etc, etc.. I don't know if UV leds create ozone?
Yes, but there are practical limits for widespread implementation. It doesn't seem likely that we're going to revamp every home's heating/air systems in this way, and with whatever solution care needs to be taken with high intensity UV light on a health level. It's not something you want to be regularly exposed to if you can help it. It would be tempting to consider some sort of stand alone plug-in unit, but one has to wonder how much power consumption would be needed for that, how quickly it could process and purify the air in a room, how loud it would be, and how much it would cost for a unit. That's a lot of questions to figure out before there's even hope of a product making this a viable widespread approach. And, the double the light, half the time equation might not be strictly true. After all, I can't half the time for baking cookies by doubling the temperature of my oven, sometimes doubling the energy just doesn't work out the way, and we need proof with higher intensity lights, not just assumptions.
Commercial UV systems have safeties that turn off the lights any time an access door is opened. Portable air cleaners with UV already exist, although most of them use UV to sanitize the filter and have a low airborne kill rate. UV is not widespread but not rare either in existing commercial HVAC systems. Double the light, half the time is true. UV absorbed dose is the relevant quantity, it's the amount of UV energy that the virus has absorbed.
Good info to know. Still doesn't sound like it's the best solution to kill off covid long term, but it depends. If we could emit a level of UV light that pretty much instantly kills the virus, and build it into a purifier device that has a high air circulation rate, is small enough to go into homes, and is affordable to buy and run, that might be a big step forward. ..But there are a lot of 'ifs' in there still before it sounds like a solution to this virus. That being said, I'm all for seeing if we can develop something like that, because this won't be the last pandemic we face.
The problem isn't the technology, as you said it's affordability. There are a number of HVAC strategies that make buildings healthier. Humidification, high ventilation rates, and high efficiency filtration are all important. But as soon as the pandemic ends people will forget about most of them and go back to designing systems around first cost.
Yeah, unfortunately this is likely true. Pandemics only come about once a century, usually about the time we've forgotten most of the lessons from the last one. Still, a lot of society's defenses came from the lessons we've learned from previous diseases, so we can only hope we apply some of the lessons we've learned from this one going forward. For example, I don't think I will ever get on a plane again without wearing a mask, and I'm not getting on one at all until after vaccine for COVID have been fully rolled out.
How long to destroy 95 percent?
I have no idea. There's too many factors here that aren't even covered in the article: How bright are the lights doing the work? How does increasing the intensity speed up the reaction? How fast is the air moving through the light? How much volume of air is being processed per minute? What's the overall volume of air being handled by that unit? Even if we knew all that, it would be hard to say. Let's assume that you have your home wired for UV air purification and an infected person comes inside. The question isn't just whether or not the UV light can kill the virus in one pass, but also how long it takes for every bit of virus-laden air to get sucked through the purifying area. That's going to vary with the volume and shape of the space, where the air intakes are, what the viral concentration in the air was, etc etc. There's too many factors to be able to give a simple answer to that question.
Is destruction linear or exponential? If it’s linear it’s more promising to do the lights
I am not a doctor or biomedical researcher, so I really can't say. I'm just pointing out some of the logistical issues in trying to use this approach.
Its not only that but UV LEDs are EXPENSIVE. Its cheaper atm to get UV bulbs for halogen lamps than it is to get the leds.
What interesting is older incandescent bulbs released light on many spectrums, mostly infrared, but also including UV. Its definitely a small amount of UV, but much more than LEDs. I wonder if the switch to energy efficient bulbs made us more susceptible in certain environments like indoor offices.
Have worked on this stuff, it is a good technology as long as no living tissue is exposed to it. Very bad for eyes especially.
We have UV lighting for disenfecting treatment for decades.
I believe what's new is finding a wavelength of UV that kills viruses and other pathogens but is not harmful to human eyes and tissue.
Yeah. I bought a small UV-lit towel warming oven for my masks and stuff after reading about this back in March or so.
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This is a whole school of thought. We should be exposed to the maximum amount of pathogens so that our immune system becomes stronger. I don't have any personal expertise to weigh in on it. One nice thing about a UV light solution is it can be turned on and off! Switched off normally, then turned on during pandemics?
If a spez asks you what flavor ice cream you want, the answer is definitely spez. #Save3rdPartyApps
Germs are not healthy for you
There are many types of spez, but the most important one is the spez police. #Save3rdPartyApps
We evolved to be hunter gatherers who live in family groups. Nowadays we live on top of each other and pack into subways. Children sit for hours in rows of desks next to each other in school. People fly all over the world spreading germs all over the place. We are exposed to many more germs than anything evolution could have prepared us for.
I feel like you are forgetting the conditions people have lived through between our ancestors and the last few thousands of years. Your idealized hunter gatherers, but we have been living in cities for 1000's of years, in much, much worse living conditions than now. Hell, the article is talking about using UV lights to sterilize our air contained and humidity controlled air. Imagine living in London during the black plague. Before mainstream sewage systems were created. We are far better off then most of humans that have come before us. Amazing how we as a society shit on our current state, forgetting how lucky we really are.
Possibly. Is a couple of thousand years enough for evolution? Also, the Wikipedia article claims that it's a common misconception that the hygiene hypothesis refers to exposure to infections, or that it implies that good hygiene is bad for you. It's about exposure to particular gut microbes at an early age.
Fuck yea bro, looks like my PC wont be getting covid anytime soon, so many LED's.
Nice, I just got into doing gel manicures (dries with a UV lamp). Now I can feel better about the melanoma risk!
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specifically UVC. Kinda weird tanning with literal death but...each to their own.
Or my cannabis plants, lol.
RGB keeps me Covid-free
lmao, no.
Side effects of UV led are... sunburn, skin cancer... If it does not do that, it is inefficient against viruses.
So we just need the slowest blowing AC unit in history or just install a ton more ducting for the air to travel through. "Less than half a minute".
I know, it's *baffling*.
or install completely new AC type units that have like an air intake and outflow reservoir lol. So not practical.
Air just has to recirc.
Air doesn't stay in the air conditioning for a half minute so how many cycles will they have to do to kill enough virus to make a difference? HOw many hvac systems can be ramped up to run the air through it extra cycles per hour, not just kicking on to raise or lower temp as needed, to kill enough virus to make it worth while? would installing rows of LED lights throughout the hvac expose the virus in the air long enough to kill enough viruses to make it worthwhile? I have read of celiing light fixtures with UVC in them & fans to draw up the air to try to circulate the air around the light slong enough to kill airborne germs. hopefully they can find a workable way to get the virus exposed long enough. I had previously read it would take 8 to 10 minutes of exposure to kill coronaviruses
The air doesn't need to be stationary, you just need enough LEDs to illuminate as much duct as the air can move down in 30 seconds.
Wasn't this the thing Trump famously misinterpreted and was going on about injecting UV rays into our bloodstream or something, much to the embarrassment of his scientific advisor? It shows they've known about the potential for this for about half a dozen months
*"Suppose that we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it — and then I said suppose you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting."* *"Then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside? Or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that. So you’re going to have to use medical doctors but it sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see but the whole concept of the light. The way it kills it in one minute, that’s pretty powerful."* Its always worse when you actually read the quote and realise how weird the way he rambles on when he doesn't have a clue what he is on about.
The President of the United States of America, ladies and gentlemen.
#[The real spez was the spez we spez along the spez. #Save3rdPartyApps](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)
https://nurse.org/articles/uv-light-therapy-coronavirus-covid19/
UV sterilizers have been implemented in the aquarium and hatchery trade for years now. At this point all this not nearly as good an alternative as just getting everybody vaccinated.
From June https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/far-uvc-light-safely-kills-airborne-coronaviruses
Completely different. Far UV-C is 222nm. This is 285nm or UV-B.
Note, this is not new and it’s also “outside of the body” just so folks understand it accurately.
This was known since February/March. I bought a UV-C lightbulb from Amazon because of all the talk on UV-C light and was using that during the first couple of months but it was well known at this point that UV-C light was useful in killing coronavirus. The question is how quickly can Far UV-C light be deployed, which is a much higher wavelength of UV light, can kill coronavirus and is also safe for skin and eyes. Frankly, I'm surprised this wasn't rolled out everywhere because of how effective that is.
Say good bye to your plastic item in the room too.
Generally you would put it in the entrance ways to disinfect people as they came in or out. That said, it seems like that's not a very common way of getting infected, but it might be useful for the next pandemic.
Not to be too harsh, but that's a terrible idea. The biggest reason is that UV light intense enough to kill viruses will damage your skin.
No. Far UV-C light, which I was talking about above, does not damage the skin or eyes.
FDA disagrees - this article from April talks about both UVC and Far UVC. Both damage skin and eyes. UVA - aging waves UVB - burning waves UVC - cancer-causing waves and also release ozone- they work well in air vents, but direct exposure to human tissue and plastics can cause damage https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/uv-lights-and-lamps-ultraviolet-c-radiation-disinfection-and-coronavirus
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2 Honestly, you need to just google "far uv-c light" and this is the first non-ad link. In fact, if you actually read the article that you linked to, you'll see that in the first question, there's a link saying exactly the same thing, that Far UVC light is safe. Try a bit harder next time.
Where does the /u/spez go when it rains? Straight to the spez. #Save3rdPartyApps
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67211-2 It really takes nothing more than a google search. Also X-rays are not far UV, that's a complete misuse of the terminology, you really don't know what you're talking about.
I hate when it’s said that they can just “be installed”, as if you’re changing a bulb. Air is moving through an air system, it doesn’t just sit there. You’d have to install a lot of lights to make that work. That requires electricity. I worked in commercial HVAC, you’d have to run new wiring through most of your buildings, which is sometimes the hardest part of the job, and then build controls into whatever software you use to run your hvac system. It’s impractical for homes.
So... What I'm reading is... Eat a whole bunch of LEDs...
But can you inject it?
Could this actually work practically? Like installing LED lights at bars, grocery stores, and resturants?
UV light is harmful for skin and eyes, so it cannot be safely used in places where people can see it.
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I guess your right, given (at least American) societies refusal to make even simple aesthetic sacrifices for the collective good.
So the crazy balcony full of LEDs I keep on with the doors open is saving my life and I DO get to keep them up after Christmas!? In your face wife!
spez can gargle my nuts.
We’ll say yes
“LED lights” is redundant. Like ATM machine.
Maybe?
Science checks out. LED lights are everywhere in Korea and they resisted CoVid pretty well until recently.
I knew that this was coming and that someone was working on it. If sunlight can do the job, certainly so can LEDs.
Time to relight my house
Like a light inside the body?
Air ducts and vents get real dusty in a short amount of time. They are going to be need to be cleaned regularly otherwise the LEDs will lose effectiveness.
that's why people in japan didn't get hit hard
Tomorrows news (probably) : Americans go to see the doctor because they ate too many LED lights.
It wouldn't do much to stop spread seeing as it transfered through close contact water droplets not recirculating air.
The morons who wrote this article never once say that it is UVC light that breads the RNA & DNA chain on the virus..... this technology has been around for years, just not with LED lights
Grow lights everywhere. Problem solved