Professor Park Moon-soo and Park Sung-soo of the Mechanical Engineering, Development of Ozone Gas Technology for Mask
- 공과대학
- Hit5396
- 2020-05-26
Professor Park Moon-soo and Professor Park Sung-soo of the Mechanical Engineering Department,
Mask Surface Coronavirus
Development of Immediate Sterilization Ozone Gas Technology
- Instant sterilization of coronavirus in 1 minute without compromising mask performance
- Expected immediate use in countries with insufficient masks and medical sites requiring frequent replacement
A research team led by Professor Park Moon-soo and Professor Park Sung-soo of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (Professor Lee Jin-yeop and Bong Chul-woo) announced that they have developed a technology that can apply the virus to a medical site that can process high concentrations of ozone gas produced by plasma generators in masks contaminated with coronavirus in one minute without compromising the performance of the mask at all.
The researchers recognized that many countries suffered from a lack of supply of N95 (Korea KF94) masks equipped with electrostatic filters after the Corona 19 outbreak, and that the long-term use of contaminated masks has also increased the infection of medical staff.
The researchers successfully suppressed 100 percent of the infection by exposing the surface of the mask contaminated with coronavirus for one minute at the level of 120 ppm of ozone gas, a disinfectant. It is expected to easily prevent mask contamination by other viruses and germs at medical sites as it can quickly kill not only coronavirus but also flu viruses and germs.
The research team conducted heavy-duty tests on KF94 masks (five times per minute, exposure to 120 ppm ozone gas) and was verified by two national certification agencies for mask performance that maintains 98% of dust collection efficiency, which is the main performance of masks. It was also confirmed that the electrostatic filter structure of the mask was not damaged at all using the scanning electron microscopy. This means that masks can be recycled at least five times.
Ozone generators on the market are designed to sterilize space in the form of air purifiers. However, low-concentration ozone gases do not make it effective against high-concentration viruses or bacterial sterilization. On the other hand, the team's treatment method uses a low-temperature upper-pressure plasma to generate 120 ppm of high-concentration ozone gas in the space where the mask is located to conduct sterilization. Since ozone is generated for a short time of one minute, the absolute amount is insignificant, either by opening windows after mask treatment or by using plasma generators in air circulationable hoods to prevent ozone-induced harmfulness problems.
In addition, this technology is an on-site technology that can be easily applied to mask sterilization by domestic companies that produce plasma generators, and it is expected that it will be able to pioneer the market for overseas exports through the process of optimizing ozone gas exposure to masks.
This study was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Science and ICT's Global Frontier Project (Director Shin Yong-beom, Director of Bio-Nano Healthguard Research Group) and BICS (Sunggyun Institute of Bio-Convergence Science and Technology) and KS (Gangbuk Samsung Hospital) Future Convergence Program.
The results of this study were pre-published on the Internet site MedRxiv, which distributes undisclosed manuscripts on health science for the rapid dissemination of technology, and the paper is currently under review for formal publication.
※ Name of paper: Fast and easy disconnection of coronavirus-contaminated face masks using ozone gas supplied by a dielectric barrier desparage plasma generator.
https://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.04.26.20080317v1 Source of the thesis: https://medrxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.04.26.20080317v1.