Design Of Optical Cavity For Air Sanification Through Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation

The transmission of airborne pathogens represents a major threat to worldwide public health. Ultraviolet light irradiation can contribute to the sanification of air to reduce the pathogen transmission. We have designed a compact filter for airborne pathogen inactivation by means of UVC LED sources, whose effective irradiance is enhanced thanks to high reflective surfaces. We used ray-tracing and computational fluid dynamic simulations to model the device and to maximize the performance inside the filter volume. Simulations also show the inhibition of SARS-Cov-2 in the case of high air fluxes. This study demonstrates that current available LED technology is effective for air sanification purposes. (C) 2021 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement