Device for continuous sterilizing the outer surface of objects by radiation

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a device for continuous sterilization of the outer surface of objects by means of radiation, more specifically the device is directed to a device for sterilization the outer surface of essentially cylinder shaped, rod-like shaped, square shaped or rectangle shaped objects by means of UVC radiation.

BACKGROUND ART

The transmission of pathogens such as viruses and bacteria in stores, public rooms, hospitals and other places are costly and at times deadly. Research studies report that pathogens can survive on certain surfaces and under certain conditions up to 3 or even 9 days. In some cases, such as that one of hospitals, the bacteria and viruses are known to significantly differ to those found elsewhere and can be resistant to treatments such as antibiotics or conventional disinfectants. In stores and public rooms, where there is a lot of human presence and touching of materials and surfaces, slowing or obstructing the transmission rate of viruses and bacteria requires substantial cleaning, and in cases conventional cleaning does not effectively remove or kill the pathogens.

Many viruses and bacteria can lead to severe illnesses and death by infections or diseases. These are transmitted by direct and indirect human contact. For example, like many viruses SARS-CoV-2, resulting in the disease COVID-19, are believed to be transmitted by the droplets and fluid when an infected person coughs or sneezes, or touches a surface. Research on related coronaviruses shows that the viruses can live for several days on surfaces and items. Similarly, many bacteria can be transmitted through direct or indirect contact with a reservoir of infectious bacteria and they can survive outside of a host and on products and surfaces to remain contagious for extended periods of time.

Significant costs are associated to infections. The World Health Organization reported numbers suggesting 3.4% of reported COVID-19 patients around the world have died and studies in China reported that 2.3% of 72000 patents have died. The Ebola virus has been reported with fatality rate is up to 50%.

The problem with many viruses and bacteria are that many people do not experience symptoms and move in public spaces. In the COVID-19 example, this means that the contagious effects are problematic. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported about 25% of people infected with the virus may exhibit no symptoms at all. Combined with that many of the viruses and bacteria are highly contagious, the risk is epidemical and pandemic outbreaks.

Efforts to eradicate or remove contaminates such as virus and bacteria from products and materials have varied in applicability and success. Personal hygiene and washing hands with chlorhexidine gluconate and povidone-iodine solutions and distancing from contagious contact points have been advocated, but proven difficult and transmission still occurs. The use of antiseptics in terms of soap, alcohol-based fluid, boric acid, and benzalkonium chloride and iodine are also evident. The problem is that many may be adding to the problem by inducing antibiotic resistance. Moreover, many products and surfaces such as keyboard, touchscreens, or handles are very difficult and almost impossible to sterilize by liquid disinfectants without a negative influence on the electronics that the product is based upon.

Radiation operations, such as using artificial UVC (ultraviolet C), which is a subgroup of ultraviolet light, and is produced by electric lamps and has previously been used for germicidal applications such as sterilization and disinfection. There have been applications of high frequency wave light UVC for decontaminate water, and there has been UVC applications for air sanitation. There have been UVC bulb sanitation solutions for materials and disinfection spaces such as operation rooms. These, however, have not been used for large-scale commercial purposes and fast frequent and optimized cleaning of materials and surfaces in seconds, such as the sanitation of a product in a store. New technology solutions in the LED field makes it possible to sanitize by customizing the wave length for optimizing sterilization of different types of surfaces. This enables large scale usage that the UVC bulbs could not effectively cover because they failed to optimize and reach important wavelength frequencies for sterilization and the technology is not suitable for fast on-and-off UVC light switching. Fast on-off switching is important to sterilize surfaces such as a payment terminals, door key pads or for consumer products. A human can use one of these surfaces when for example buying and paying a product and UVC sanitation can occur before the next human use the device. In this way, UVC sanitation can determinate bacteria and virus from the surface before usage of next customer. The wide use of UVC LED is so far limited, but the recent COVID-19 pandemic and concerns for highly contagious viruses and bacteria supports a strong societal need for cheap and alternative devices. This requires that the UVC radiation is reliable, e.g. that the result of radiation is accurate and that the UVC radiation procedure produces similar results of sterilization upon a UVC radiation procedure. To date, there is no published efforts to use the UVC LED for reliable disinfection. UVC radiation can be effective for sterilization, but it is dependent upon how clean the surface is when being exposed to UVC radiation. Clean conditions can be defined as absence of disturbing conditions for UVC sterilization and the absence of organic matter on the surface. A recent study shows that UVC does not produce the same reliability when it tries to sanitize bacteria and viruses from a dirty surface.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a device for continuous sterilization the outer surface of solid objects by means of radiation, in particular by UVC-radiation for sterilization of the outer surface of objects or similar objects.

The invention is defined by the appended independent claims.

Embodiments are set forth in the appended dependent claims and in the following description and drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying schematic drawings. In which;

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a cut out of part of a device in accordance with the present invention.

Figure 2 is a front view of a device in accordance with the present invention.

Figure 3A is a cross-sectional view according to line IIIA-IIIA in fig. 2.

Figure 3B is a cross-sectional view according to line IIIB-IIIB in fig. 2.

Figure 3C is a cross-sectional view according to line NIC-NIC in fig. 2.

Figure 3D is a cross-sectional view according to line NID-NID in fig. 2.

Figure 4 is a cross sectional view illustrating a method of manufacturing a device according to the invention by means of joined preferably extruded profile halves of aluminium.

Figure 5 shows a phosphorescent label that is present on an object to emit a visible light or colour indicating that radiation of the object has been executed.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

With reference to figs. 1 and 2, a device according to the present invention generally designated by 1.

The device 1 comprises essentially three horizontally and in a raw successively arranged stations which in order from the left to the right side in the figures comprise an input zone 2, a radiation zone 3 and an output zone 4. A trackway 5 extends through each of these zones and on which trackway objects 6 can be moved through the radiation zone 3 in contact at the ends of with one another, from the input zone 2 to the output zone 4 as shown in fig. 2. The trackway 5 can be suitably grooved to guide the objects 6 along the trackway 5. The rod-like objects 6 may be cylindrical and can, but may not necessarily, be pushed by hand through the radiation zone 3 of the device meaning that the trackway 5 herewith can be designed as a horizontal sliding element along which the objects 6 can slide in a raw by pushing on each other forward.

With reference also to fig. 3A-3D, the radiation zone 3 comprises an elongated substantially enclosed interior space 10 which is delimited outwardly by a casing 11. The inner space 10 has an input end 12 facing the input zone 2 and an output end 14 facing the output zone 4. To prevent radiation leaking from the interior space 10 of the radiation zone 3, the input end 12 of the casing 10 is provided with a transverse end wall 13 and the output end 15 of the casing with a corresponding transverse end wall 13. Each of said end walls 13, 15 comprise an opening 16 which can be of a complementary shape to the cross section of the object 6 so that the outside of the object's or periphery can come in a substantially radiation-sealing cooperation against the inner edge of the aperture during its travel along the trackway 5.

As shown in fig. 3A-3D, an upper reflector 18 and a lower reflector 19 is mounted in the radiation zone 3 to effectively distribute radiation over the entire outside surface of the object 6. To ensure that all outside surfaces of the object are sterilized by radiation, the trackway 5 in the radiation zone 3 can comprise quartz or similar material that is transparent to radiation. In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention the object is supported by quartz rods 20 in the section of the trackway 5 of the radiation zone 3 as shown in fig. 3D. Similar support means which are transparent to radiation could also be used.

With reference to figure 4, advantageously extruded and joining aluminium profile halves 1 T,

11 ” can be used to form said casing 11. One of the advantages to use aluminium profiles is not only their radiation endurance but also that the inside of the walls of the profiles easily be designed with grooves or channels which can ease mounting of the various components needed inside the casing.

As already hinted here above the radiation zone 3 comprises a radiation source 30, which as shown in fig. 3D, are mounted in par, one on each side of two opposing walls of the casing.

The radiation source 30 may preferably be UVC emitters 31 on a printed board 32 with built in LJVC LEDs emitting radiation. As shown in fig. 3B the device further comprises an electronic driver 33 located under the trackway, and one or more detection components such as a first sensor 34 arranged inside the casing 11 for identification of a new object 6 entering the device 1. Each object 6 intended to be sterilized by the device can herewith be marked with an identification 35 such as a tag or chip which can be read by the first sensor 34. The identification 35 can be comprised of a NFC/RFID chip or an image tag such as a bar code, QR-code or similar readable image. When an object 6 is in range the first sensor 34 will identify and read the data from the chip or barcode and address the received data to a control unit 37 located inside the casing 11 as shown in fig. 3A. In another embodiment the device can comprise a second sensor 37 arranged inside the casing 11 for detecting the speed of each of the objects 6 as it passes through the radiation zone 3. A series of optical speed sensor 37 can be printed on the circuit board (PCB) in series or interconnected with the UVC emitters 31 on the printed board. Speed data from said second sensor 37 can also be addressed to the control unit 36 such as a CPU which in turn addresses control signals to the electronic driver 32.

Said first and second sensors 34, 37 forming part of the detection components; the electronic drive 33 and any other necessary components are connected together with the control unit 36 with electrical cables or with wireless technology.

As shown in the figures in one preferred embodiment substantially all components are preferably arranged on an inside of the casing. However, in alternative embodiment some of the components may be arranged on the outside of the casing 11 such as necessary control means, a power switch and/or a control lamp or graphic display for indicating the working status of the device (not shown on the drawings).

The control unit 36 is in its turn connected to the electronic drive 33 which is connected with the radiation source 30. The control unit 35 and the electronic drive 33 delivers power to the detection components being comprised of the said first 34 and second sensor 37 and also to the radiation source or emitter 30. The detection components (sensors 34, 37) are preferably continuously active, to provide reliable information to the control unit. Once they have been activated, they will continuously send signals and data to the control unit 36 which will either regulate the duration, level or intensity of the radiation emitted from the radiation source 30 in dependence of the speed of an object 6 as it passes through the radiation zone 3. The control unit 35, is also provided to start and stop radiation operation, or to provide indication of warnings for deviation for example on the graphic display to a user using the apparatus. This further means that if any one of the detection components is faulty or has broken down or if the specific intended object 6 cannot be identified as admitted for irradiation the radiation process will be interrupted or will not be able to start. The UVC LEDs 31 on the printed circuit board (PCB) or chip and as mentioned here above the second sensors 37 for detection speed of an object 6 can be components that are interconnected or arranged in series on an electrical circuit. NFC/RFID or barcode components may be used to position and identify objects 6 going to be radiated. If NFC/RFID or barcode tagged 35 objects come close to the NFC/RFID or barcode reader 34 it will read the data from the chip and address it to the control unit 36. The control unit 36 will analyze the data and signals provided by the detection components and give appropriate commands to the UVC emitter 30. Different type of commands can be given depending upon desired functionality. Typical examples can be increase of dosage, pulsation, duration or on or/and off.

As illustrated in fig 2 and fig. 5, on the object 6 to be radiated, a phosphorescent label 40 may be present. The label 40 will react when receiving UV/UVC radiation and emit a visible light or colour giving indication to users that radiation has been executed. In an embodiment of the present invention, the device according to the present invention can advantageously be used to sterilize customer dividers at a check-out counter in a supermarket or a similar sales facility.

In another interesting embodiment the device could be used for sterilizing square shaped objects such as airport security scanner bins.