Inventor: Katie Pascavis, Engineering & Arizona State University
During the COVID pandemic, the inventor was based at Arizona State University and investigated the issue of sterilisation of medical equipment. The emergency standard for sterilising N95 masks at the start of the pandemic was to use vaporised hydrogen peroxide in large-scale systems, which is expensive and not portable.
The inventor designed a low cost and portable system based on vaporised hydrogen peroxide, which could be manufactured for only $650. For regulatory purposes, these are FDA Class 1 sterilisation devices due to the use of the hydrogen peroxide.
Since this was still expensive for low resource settings, and required hydrogen peroxide as a feedstock, the inventor then looked at building a completely self-contained electronic system based on ozone. The ozone sterilisation system uses only electronic parts and can be manufactured for only $70 or $130 depending on size. The ozone is generated from the air without needing any chemicals, only a source of electricity. This is a FDA Class 2 sterilisation device.
In tests both systems were shown to reduce a SARS-CoV-2 proxy by 99.9999% in N95 masks while maintaining the N95 filtration efficiency. Unfortunately, the ozone did degrade some parts of the masks, primarily the bands. However, the same approach can also be used with electronics and other types of equipment which would not be degraded in this way.
The question for the i-Team is to investigate the market need for a sterilisation device of this type, looking initially at the hospital and healthcare market, and also beyond that to other uses. Firstly, which countries and regions would have a need for it, and what types of objects would they need to sterilise. Secondly, which version of the product is most attractive: for example, is ozone accepted as a sterilising agent or is vaporise hydrogen peroxide preferred? Would the users of the steriliser have access to a source of hydrogen peroxide? What are the regulatory requirements for sterilisers in the target countries? The feedback from the i-Teams interviews with relevant experts will help determine the next steps in developing this product for real-world use.