Beggs Clive B, Avital Eldad J
Carnegie School of Sport, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, UK.
School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
PeerJ. 2020 Oct 13;8:e10196. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10196. eCollection 2020.
As the world's economies come out of the lockdown imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an urgent need for technologies to mitigate COVID-19 transmission in confined spaces such as buildings. This feasibility study looks at one such technology, upper-room ultraviolet (UV) air disinfection, that can be safely used while humans are present in the room space, and which has already proven its efficacy as an intervention to inhibit the transmission of airborne diseases such as measles and tuberculosis. Using published data from various sources, it is shown that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the causative agent of COVID-19, is highly likely to be susceptible to UV-C damage when suspended in air, with a UV susceptibility constant likely to be in the region 0.377-0.590 m/J, similar to that for other aerosolised coronaviruses. As such, the UV-C flux required to disinfect the virus is expected to be acceptable and safe for upper-room applications. Through analysis of expected and worst-case scenarios, the efficacy of the upper-room UV-C approach for reducing COVID-19 transmission in confined spaces (with moderate but sufficient ceiling height) is demonstrated. Furthermore, it is shown that with SARS-CoV-2, it should be possible to achieve high equivalent air change rates using upper-room UV air disinfection, suggesting that the technology might be particularly applicable to poorly ventilated spaces.
随着世界各国经济从新冠疫情封锁措施中解封，迫切需要采用技术来减少新冠病毒在建筑物等密闭空间内的传播。本可行性研究着眼于一种此类技术，即房间上部紫外线（UV）空气消毒技术，该技术在有人在室内空间时也可安全使用，并且已证明其作为一种干预手段，在抑制麻疹和结核病等空气传播疾病传播方面具有有效性。利用来自各种来源的已发表数据表明，新冠病毒病的病原体严重急性呼吸综合征冠状病毒2（SARS-CoV-2）病毒悬浮在空气中时极有可能易受紫外线C（UV-C）损伤，其紫外线敏感性常数可能在0.377 - 0.590 m/J范围内，与其他雾化冠状病毒类似。因此，对该病毒进行消毒所需的UV-C通量预计对于房间上部应用是可接受且安全的。通过对预期和最坏情况场景的分析，证明了房间上部UV-C方法在减少密闭空间（天花板高度适中但足够）内新冠病毒传播方面的有效性。此外，研究表明，对于SARS-CoV-2，使用房间上部UV空气消毒应该能够实现高等效换气率，这表明该技术可能特别适用于通风不良的空间。
