Posted April 8, 2020, on Michigan Tech News
Reprinted in part with permission
HOUGHTON -- A refrigerated shipping container. Commercial-grade baking sheets. A modified oven. These are the key pieces of a prototype that uses heat to sanitize personal protection equipment (PPE).
The idea is simple: Disinfect PPE at temperatures hot enough to break up coronaviruses and do so in a big, moveable oven that can be quickly made with local, off-the-shelf parts that are easy to get and put together. The unit can clean 5,000 to 10,000 PPE units every two hours and can run continuously.
The design is streamlined: Use a thick-walled shipping container with the refrigeration unit swapped for a heating unit run on an electric generator, then line it with stainless steel racks and trays holding PPE, and heat it up to 140-170 degrees Fahrenheit.
The manufacturing is built on community: The parts are all on hand in commercial bakeries, restaurants, HVAC shops, shipping yards and universities -- and could be quickly delivered to hospital and clinic loading docks.
An engineering team from Michigan Technological University tested the prototype in a campus parking lot alongside local company Aire Care. They call it the Mobile Thermal Utility (MTU) Sanitizer. The prototype is now heading downstate for further validation testing. The World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend heat-soaking to eliminate coronaviruses like the one that causes COVID-19. The CDC offers guidelines on temperature ranges and time for effectiveness. ... Click here to read the rest of this article on Michigan Tech News.
No comments:
Post a Comment