Surface disinfection with white-violet illumination device

Martin Hessling; Tobias Meurle; Katharina Hoenes; Martin Hessling; Tobias Meurle; Katharina Hoenes

doi:10.3934/bioeng.2022008

AIMS Bioengineering

2022, Volume 9, Issue 2: 93-101. doi: 10.3934/bioeng.2022008

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Communication

Surface disinfection with white-violet illumination device

Department of Medical Engineering and Mechatronics, Ulm University of Applied Sciences, Albert-Einstein-Allee 55, D-89081 Ulm, Germany

Received: 09 March 2022 Revised: 28 March 2022 Accepted: 29 March 2022 Published: 02 April 2022

The spread of infections, as in the coronavirus pandemic, leads to the desire to perform disinfection measures even in the presence of humans. UVC radiation is known for its strong antimicrobial effect, but it is also harmful to humans. Visible light, on the other hand, does not affect humans and laboratory experiments have already demonstrated that intense visible violet and blue light has a reducing effect on bacteria and viruses. This raises the question of whether the development of pathogen-reducing illumination is feasible for everyday applications. For this purpose, a lighting device with white and violet LEDs is set up to illuminate a work surface with 2,400 lux of white light and additionally with up to 2.5 mW/cm² of violet light (405 nm). Staphylococci are evenly distributed on the work surface and the decrease in staphylococci concentration is observed over a period of 46 hours. In fact, the staphylococci concentration decreases, but with the white illumination, a 90% reduction occurs only after 34 hours; with the additional violet illumination the necessary irradiation time is shortened to approx. 3.5 hours. Increasing the violet component probably increases the disinfection effect, but the color impression moves further away from white and the low disinfection durations of UVC radiation can nevertheless not be achieved, even with very high violet emissions.
- photoinactivation,
- photosensitizer,
- visible light,
- white LEDs,
- violet LEDs,
- color temperature,
- staphylococci
Citation: Martin Hessling, Tobias Meurle, Katharina Hoenes. Surface disinfection with white-violet illumination device[J]. AIMS Bioengineering, 2022, 9(2): 93-101. doi: 10.3934/bioeng.2022008

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Abstract

The spread of infections, as in the coronavirus pandemic, leads to the desire to perform disinfection measures even in the presence of humans. UVC radiation is known for its strong antimicrobial effect, but it is also harmful to humans. Visible light, on the other hand, does not affect humans and laboratory experiments have already demonstrated that intense visible violet and blue light has a reducing effect on bacteria and viruses. This raises the question of whether the development of pathogen-reducing illumination is feasible for everyday applications. For this purpose, a lighting device with white and violet LEDs is set up to illuminate a work surface with 2,400 lux of white light and additionally with up to 2.5 mW/cm² of violet light (405 nm). Staphylococci are evenly distributed on the work surface and the decrease in staphylococci concentration is observed over a period of 46 hours. In fact, the staphylococci concentration decreases, but with the white illumination, a 90% reduction occurs only after 34 hours; with the additional violet illumination the necessary irradiation time is shortened to approx. 3.5 hours. Increasing the violet component probably increases the disinfection effect, but the color impression moves further away from white and the low disinfection durations of UVC radiation can nevertheless not be achieved, even with very high violet emissions.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Johannes Trassl, Florian Maiss, Benedikt Zillner and Andre Peter Wenzl for setting up the white-violet lighting. Financial support by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grant 13N15140) is gratefully acknowledged.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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