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This device can disinfect the interior of an airplane – and kill coronavirus – in minutes
Ever since coronavirus concerns have taken over essentially every aspect of everyday live, airlines have been paying more attention to the process of cleaning planes. Now, a company named Dimer is seeing increased interest in a device they conceived several years ago to battle the flu. Think drink cart, but when you run it down the aisle of an airplane, it disinfects the entire interior in minutes. A guy named Elliott Krightenberg. He describes himself as an “international and intergalactic… (ktla.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
Hey, it may still need some tweaking and improvements, but it has to start somewhere. After all, as amazing a piece of technology an A350 or 787 is, it is not exactly what Orville and Wilbur 1st rolled out on the sands of Kitty Hawk. And everyone agrees there are many aspects of aircraft sanitation that could be improved upon, so what is wrong if this is done just after the cabin cleaners finish their cleaning, It might not hit 100% of everything on a plane, but hitting an extra 40 or 50% is better than 0.
Disinfection methods all depend on contact time and intensity. Whether its a chemical like chlorine or UV light, how strong is the disinfectant, is it contacting every microbe, bacteria, virus, etc. and was the contact long enough to kill. Seat pockets, tray tables, under seat, overhead baggage compartments, etc. There are a lot of places that will be in the shadows, how will you get there? In addition many plastics (think everything in the cabin) will photodegrade when exposed to UV light.
I don't spend a lot of time under my seat on an airplane. If the light can hit it, probably that's where most people are going to be provided some protection.
Think about both sides of the seat belt, for one. And the point of UV degradation is a good one too. These materials probably were not designed to withstand so much UV radiation.
This device is a variant(same tech different body)of the device that is now used to decontaminate operating rooms in hospitals nationwide. I was a housekeeping supervisor at a hospital when we bought one of those machines. We did before and after testing to see if the $100k purchase price was a good investment. Both the data that we collected and what was shared by other facilities was truly impressive! We had the cleanest OR in the state (verified by independent testing)before using the Xenex. After the purchase and use they were as close to perfect as possible given that humans had to inhabit the space. This would be an amazing leap in cleanliness for the airlines, however, as mentioned before,the machines are dangerous and somewhat fragile for this kind of use.
Even if its not perfect today, they'll find ways to improve it.