UV LED's for sterilization???

[FRITZHID]

...which is why it's bad for your lungs also.

and eyes, nose, throat, sinuses, etc! lol

 

[Ken_McE]

360 nm LED:

http://www.thefoxgroupinc.com/products/by-wavelength/360-nm/

 

[Connor]

Voilà, 150mW 265nm LEDs: http://nict.jp/press/2017/04/04-1.html

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Wow. Thanks, Connor.

I can't determine from the article whether these are available yet, and for what price. I'll bet they will be expensive.

 

[Connor]

I have no clue, I just learned about those 10 minutes ago. They're brand-new apparently.

 

[light-modder]

I saw a portable UV sterilizer on kickstarter or indigogo a little bit ago. Aimed at parents of babies for sterilization of bottles but mentioned that lots of other things could be done as well. I wish I could remember the name. They also said they were using some new technology and I think they had a patent or one pending. Anyway, looked kinda cool.

 

[Alaric Darconville]

After reading subsequent posts and seeing inexplicable mention of 260nm, I thought it would be beneficial to quote Alaric Darconville's early post, because this is the best reply so far.

And then you CRUSHED it with yours.

 

[HarryN]

Just an FYI, I met with S-ET last week and the price and lifetime of good quality, reasonably high output UV LEDs has advanced remarkably.

http://s-et.com/http://s-et.com/

I am going to buy a couple and let my summer intern experiment with them.

 

[woodpeck]

UV LED for sterilization, I just learned something new. My sister sometimes uses my UV flashlight to cure her gel polish.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Woodpeck, I would not trust your UV flashlight for sterilization. You need shortwave UVC for this, in the neighborhood of 265nm. Virtually all UV flashlights operate in the longwave region of 365-400nm. Longwave UV can't break down the cell walls in the germs. While there are some new shortwave UV LEDs out there, I haven't seen any of them show up in flashlights yet.

Wikipedia has a good article on UV germicidal wavelengths. Look at the graphs on the right and you'll see that anything longer than ~310 nm is virtually useless for germicidal use (normal blacklight is 365-400nm).

 

[RetiredFireCaptain]

Another couple of years gone and still no information on germicidal LED's.

 

[alpg88]

now a days those G lights are installed in every top of the line water coolers, and prbly not only top of the line, same with some commercial AC units. if you need a disinfecting light, just look for spare bulbs for those. they are otherwise regular fluorescent lights, regular ballast will work with such lights, most of the time.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

now a days those G lights are installed in every top of the line water coolers, and prbly not only top of the line, same with some commercial AC units. if you need a disinfecting light, just look for spare bulbs for those. they are otherwise regular fluorescent lights, regular ballast will work with such lights, most of the time.

This is correct. The germicidal versions of fluorescent tubes are made of a special type of quartz envelope with no phosphor coating. They otherwise act like regular fluorescent tubes. There are handheld wand sterilizers that use miniature fluorescent germicidal tubes. They also make germicidal CFL bulbs with the built-in ballast and regular edison base. Just be careful around them; they're VERY bad for your eyes and skin.

 

[runcyclexcski]

I just posted on 300 nm 30 mW LEDs, coindicentally. They are not cheap. I use them to cross-link and destroy DNA nanostructures. It takes 1 hr of irradiation to chop 90% of DNA into non-detectable pieces. But, I imagine, to sterlize you would not need that degree of DNA 'digestion'. You would need to experiment with the dosage. Cheers!

 

[PhotonWrangler]

I just posted on 300 nm 30 mW LEDs, coindicentally. They are not cheap. I use them to cross-link and destroy DNA nanostructures. It takes 1 hr of irradiation to chop 90% of DNA into non-detectable pieces. But, I imagine, to sterlize you would not need that degree of DNA 'digestion'. You would need to experiment with the dosage. Cheers!

What do these 300nm LEDs cost?