Hy-Q Seminar - Peter Tønning and Anders Samuelsen

New market segments enabled by far-UVC technologies

Peter Tønning and Anders Samuelsen
UV Medico A/S, Aarhus, Denmark

Part of the ultraviolet spectrum from 200 nm to 230 nm wavelength, called far-UVC, is highly absorbed by proteins in the superficial inactive cells of the skin and eyes. This allows for direct exposure of far-UVC at effective doses for pathogen deactivation.

UV Medico develops and produces far-UVC solutions. Our products have the advantage of being suitable for continuous disinfection of both the air and surfaces in occupied spaces. As such, far-UVC has a broader application area than conventional germicidal UV light sources which damage living cells. The latter are restricted to applications without direct human exposure, such as upper room ventilation systems and disinfection robots. Research on far-UVC has recently triggered a movement to increase exposure limits and adapt regulations accordingly. With the progressive adherence of regulatory agencies, new applications are enabled. This presentation will focus on the food industry as an example of the diverse application field.

Currently krypton-chloride excimer lamps are the only commercially viable source of far-UVC. For the next-generation devices, we are developing a light source that is inherently spectrally pure and flexible to access a variety of wavelengths across the far-UVC. This is only possible by leveraging state-of-the-art integrated nonlinear photonics design and fabrication techniques paired with commercially available laser diodes. Compared to the existing lamp technology, these integrated photonic devices will drastically reduce the size, weight, power consumption, and cost after transitioning to large-scale production.