Coronavirus: IIT Guwahati incubated startup develops sanitiser tunnel for full-body disinfection

IIT Guwahati incubated startup has come up with a disinfectant tunnel to help sanitise a person and also other larger products.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati incubated start-up Vixudha Bio Product in collaboration with Oasis Fabrications have developed a disinfectant tunnel which can help in sanitising full-body and also other large products.

The project has been spearheaded by Dr. Mihir Kumar Purkait, Head of Centre for the Environment, and professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Dr Prabir Kumar Saha, Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Guwahati.

The disinfectant tunnel is a full-body disinfection chamber meant to decontaminate one personnel at a time. High-pressure nozzles spray the disinfectant fluid in the form of a fine mist filling the chamber. This fluid disrupts the protein structure of microorganisms on the surface, thus killing them eventually. The spraying continues for a set time of seven seconds.

"Apart from the sensitive areas like our eyes and mouth, the rest of the body can be disinfected when you enter the tunnel. The body gets exposed to a lot of germs, bacteria and viruses on transport or outdoor places especially amid the outbreak of such a life-threatening disease. What is unique about our tunnel is the mist formation using a nozzle so it will be uniformly distributed on the object or human body and not just hands or parts of the body. It will work on any kind of virus or microorganisms, not just the COVID-19 virus. Any standard disinfectant can be used in the tunnel," Dr Purkait said.

The researchers have kept the operational cost as low as Rs 2 per person and the volume of the fluid sprayed in one cycle is 25 ml. The disinfectant tunnel is 3 feet by 6 feet by 8 feet and can be easily installed at confined spaces. This tunnel can be used in hospitals, office buildings, residential societies, food markets, schools, colleges, bus stands, cinema halls, malls, etc.

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