National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, School of Physics, Key Laboratory of Intelligent Optical Sensing and Integration and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, P. R. China.
State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China.
Adv Mater. 2018 Dec;30(49):e1805159. doi: 10.1002/adma.201805159. Epub 2018 Oct 10.
Steam sterilization is widely used as one of the most reliable sterilization methods for public health. However, traditional steam sterilization mainly relies on electricity, a constrained resource for many developing countries and areas. The lack of available and affordable sterilization techniques in these areas is exposing human beings to a high risk of various epidemic diseases, and calls for the development of off-grid sterilization solutions. For the first time, the kinetic advantages of interfacial solar steam generation is fundamentally revealed and it is demonstrated that interfacial solar steam generation can enable fast-responsive (as short as 8.4 min for a full sterilization cycle) and energy-efficient (100 J mL for steam reaching 121 °C) sterilization, superior to those of the conventional sterilization techniques. The key solar absorber is made of low cost and widely available biochar. A proof-of-concept sterilization system with a 10.5 L solar autoclave is built with very low cost of whole life-cycle and operates with minimum carbon footprint. Effective sterilization (≈99.999999% inactivation of pathogen), exceeding the requirements of Food and Drug Administration is demonstrated, making the sterilization strategy a promising and complementary personalized sterilization solution, particularly beneficial for off-grid areas.
蒸汽灭菌被广泛用作公共卫生领域最可靠的灭菌方法之一。然而，传统的蒸汽灭菌主要依赖电力，而电力对于许多发展中国家和地区来说是一种有限的资源。这些地区缺乏可用且负担得起的灭菌技术，使人类面临各种传染病的高风险，因此需要开发离网灭菌解决方案。本文首次从动力学角度揭示了界面太阳能蒸汽产生的优势，并证明了界面太阳能蒸汽产生可以实现快速响应（整个灭菌周期短至 8.4 分钟）和节能（达到 121°C 的蒸汽 100 J mL）的灭菌效果，优于传统灭菌技术。关键的太阳能吸收器由低成本且广泛可用的生物炭制成。用非常低的全生命周期成本构建了一个具有 10.5 L 太阳能高压灭菌器的概念验证灭菌系统，并具有最小的碳足迹。证明了有效的灭菌（≈99.999999%的病原体失活），超过了食品和药物管理局的要求，使该灭菌策略成为一种有前途的、互补的个性化灭菌解决方案，尤其有益于离网地区。
