Efficacy of single pass UVC air treatment for the inactivation of coronavirus, MS2 coliphage and Staphylococcus aureus bioaerosols

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dc.contributor.authorSnelling, William J.
dc.contributor.authorAfkhami, Arsalan
dc.contributor.authorTurkington, Hannah
dc.contributor.authorCarlisle, Claire L.
dc.contributor.authorCosby, S. Louise
dc.contributor.authorHamilton, Jeremy W.J.
dc.contributor.authorTernan, Nigel G.
dc.contributor.authorDunlop, Patrick S.M.
dc.date.accessioned2022-06-20T13:13:24Z
dc.date.available2022-06-20T13:13:24Z
dc.date.issued2022-04-26
dc.descriptionPublication history: Accepted - 20 April 2022; Published online - 26 April 2022en_US
dc.description.abstractThere is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is spread predominantly by airborne transmission, with high viral loads released into the air as respiratory droplets and aerosols from the infected subject. The spread and persistence of SARS-CoV-2 in diverse indoor environments reinforces the urgent need to supplement distancing and PPE based approaches with effective engineering measures for microbial decontamination – thereby addressing the significant risk posed by aerosols. We hypothesized that a portable, single-pass UVC air treatment device (air flow 1254 L/min) could effectively inactivate bioaerosols containing bacterial and viral indicator organisms, and coronavirus without reliance on filtration technology, at reasonable scale. Robust experiments demonstrated UVC dose dependent inactivation of Staphylococcus aureus (UV rate constant (k) = 0.098 m2/J) and bacteriophage MS2, with up to 6-log MS2 reduction achieved in a single pass through the system (k = 0.119 m2/J). The inclusion of a PTFE diffuse reflector increased the effective UVC dose by up to 34% in comparison to a standard Al foil reflector (with identical lamp output), resulting in significant additional pathogen inactivation (1-log S. aureus and MS2, p < 0.001). Complete inactivation of bovine coronavirus bioaerosols was demonstrated through tissue culture infectivity (2.4-log reduction) and RT-qPCR analysis – confirming single pass UVC treatment to effectively deactivate coronavirus to the limit of detection of the culture-based method. Scenario-based modelling was used to investigate the reduction in risk of airborne person-to-person transmission based upon a single infected subject within the small room. Use of the system providing 5 air changes per hour was shown to significantly reduce airborne viral load and maintain low numbers of RNA copies when the infected subject remained in the room, reducing the risk of airborne pathogen transmission to other room users. We conclude that the application of single-pass UVC systems (without reliance on HEPA filtration) could play a critical role in reducing the risk of airborne pathogen transfer, including SARS-CoV2, in locations where adequate fresh air ventilation cannot be implemented.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis research was partly funded through the Invest Northern Ireland Innovation Voucher Programme (IV130218200 and IV130232906). We are grateful to the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) UK Research and Innovation (SAFEWATER; EPSRC Grant Reference EP/P032427/1) for supporting Mr Arsalan Afkhami, Dr William J Snelling and Dr Jeremy W.J. Hamilton. Research at AFBI is funded by US-Ireland Research and Development Partnership in Agriculture grants BRDC-Seq and BRDC-URTMVP. We wish to thank Jonathan McMaw at AFBI for acquisition of images.en_US
dc.identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12518/458
dc.identifier.citationSnelling, W.J., Afkhami, A., Turkington, H.L., Carlisle, C., Cosby, S.L., Hamilton, J.W.J., Ternan, N.G. and Dunlop, P.S.M. (2022) ‘Efficacy of single pass UVC air treatment for the inactivation of coronavirus, MS2 coliphage and Staphylococcus aureus bioaerosols’, Journal of Aerosol Science. Elsevier BV. doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2022.106003.en_US
dc.identifier.issn0021-8502
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaerosci.2022.106003
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherElsevieren_US
dc.rights© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).en_US
dc.subjectUVCen_US
dc.subjectAir treatmenten_US
dc.subjectAir sterilisationen_US
dc.subjectSARS-CoV-2en_US
dc.subjectMS2en_US
dc.subjectPTFEen_US
dc.titleEfficacy of single pass UVC air treatment for the inactivation of coronavirus, MS2 coliphage and Staphylococcus aureus bioaerosolsen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
dcterms.dateAccepted2022-04-20
dcterms.dateSubmitted2022-02-09

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