UV application - Air Purification

Air Purification

With up to 91% of the world’s population living in areas with poor air quality, ensuring our air is clean and safe in our homes, hospitals, and world is critical to our health and climate. While HEPA filters are widely used to trap pollutants in the air in many indoor settings, they are unable to capture certain pathogens and microbial pollutants in the air.

Furthermore, many dark and damp air conditioning, heating, and humidifying systems can be hotbeds for bacterial, fungal, and viral growth, subjecting humans to potentially harmful air unknowingly. Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation can be an extremely effective way of reducing bacterial growth by rapidly inactivating proteins and nucleic acids essential for reproduction in microorganisms.

WAVELENGTHS: 365NM, 280NM-265NM

While current use of mercury lamps is widespread, UV LEDs open the door for innovative solutions to keep our air system units clean and safe in hard to reach areas that are not always considered.

With their tiny form factor, LEDs are capable of compact, high power designs to reduce pathogens in the air.

UV LEDs can inactivate resilient strains of microorganisms that pass through HEPA filters and are extremely effective in combination-use. This is especially relevant in sensitive environments such as hospitals, where hospital acquired infections (HAIs) are of concern. These nosocomial infections have the highest penetration rates of HEPA filters, as they are able to pass through filtration and continue to infect the air.

UV LEDs can also be pulsed for a greater optical output flux and shorter irradiation time with no warm-up period. While designing purifiers with LEDs, increased exposure to shadowed areas can be provided by using aluminum reflectors.

While UVC LEDs can provide the essential germicidal disinfection, UVA and UVB LEDs can also potentially be used with varying dosages to achieve cost savings and increased efficiency. UVA LEDs can also be used with titanium dioxide nanoparticles to perform oxidation reactions, purifying the air of microorganisms in a process called photocatalytic air purification. There are many emerging phtocatalytic air purifiers on the market today.

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Filtration of Airborne Microorganisms: Modeling and Prediction (Kowalski, Bahnfleth, Whittam)