UV-C Sterilising Wands

Apr 26, 2020 Last reply: 6 years ago 46 Replies

I wouldn't bother

There are a few Youtube videos showing how effective these wands are. To kill bacteria on a Microscope slide the wand had to be in near contact with slide for more than a minute to be semi effective. For a 1cm x 3cm area (the maximum these wands can illuminate at near contact) 1 minute and so for a 2 metre long kitchen worktop it would take approx. 60 hours incrementally moving the wand to get the same results. Other videos showing much more powerful UVc lamps being used to expose Petrie dishes after which the remaining bacteria were incubated for 24 hours indicated that a much longer exposure was required. These latter UV lights were the type you wouldn't want to be in the same room with if illuminated.

The external packaging surface will have been touched minutes agos whereas in all probability the contents will last have been touched 24 hours or if you are like me and always select slow free delivery about 3 days ago which is about the max lifetime of the virus on hard surfaces.

A plank of wood would be smarter than you.

Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions. We were originally looking for a 'dry' solution to deal with possible contamination, and while the wands I was looking at would appear to be effective (mercury vapour tube plus basic safety features), they were quite low powered and would have required several passes to complete the job. We can do the job much more quickly as we are doing at present with alcohol wipes, and you can buy a lot of wipes for the price of one of the wands.

Just soak the moss in soap! If there is no UV-C due to rain, then the soapy water will destroy the virus!!

(Do not take the above advice literally. Consult a doctor or medical professional. Do not trust someone because they say "they have good feeling about this" on the internets. Do not ingest or inject bleach or disinfectants. Do not play with carcinogenic radiation.)

Thomas Prufer

Andrzej, can't you really see that all these daft posts just show up your inadequacy?

You do need serious power. A torch or wand isn't going to cut it. If you can accept the downsides, get it right & it's a fairly good approach.

I used to use 1.6kW lamps, though not for sterilising. Instant blindness if you catch sight of it. Staying in the room with goggles is not smart.

The power supplies that ran them had >1.6kW transformers, large bottles with mercury etc, definitely not portable. The technology has moved on a lot :) But you still need plenty of power. If cost is an issue it's not too hard to build these old technology jobs.

NT

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