Health and hygiene company RayVio Corp of Haywood, CA, USA, which is commercializing deep-ultraviolet (UV) LEDs and consumer disinfection solutions, has published its latest application note, which details its UV dosing experiments proving the water sterilization capability of the firm’s UV-C LEDs. Water safety is of particular concern in consumer appliances and applications where water may stand for a period of time, be exposed to contaminants, or be turned into vapor and distributed through the air, as is the case with humidifiers.
“3mW of UV-C light from a RayVio XE Series LED applied hourly for 5 minutes can keep stored water ‘clean’ indefinitely,” says Dr Doug Collins, chief technology officer & VP of engineering.
The first experiment – a side-by-side test of two clean water samples – showed that intermittent treatment (dosing) with RayVio’s UV-C light will keep clean water clean while water that is not dosed will have significant growth of bacteria.
The second experiment – with two heavily contaminated water samples – demonstrated that contaminated water exposed to periodic doses of UV-C light from RayVio’s UV LED can be decontaminated with a few doses of UV light over the span of several hours.
“Water safety is on everyone’s mind because of its potential as a breeding ground for bacteria and viruses and the ease with which infections can be spread at homes and in offices,” says Collins. “Our XE Series UV-C LEDs can keep clean water from becoming contaminated with germs and clean already contaminated water,” he adds.
Lifetime for UV-C LEDs approaching 10,000 hours
The operational lifetime of UV-C LEDs is critical to most applications, particularly those that affect people’s health and hygiene, says RayVio. Lifetime performance of the firm’s XE and XP Series UV-C LEDs continue to lead the industry, it is claimed. With lifetimes approaching 10,000 hours, the value and longevity of many consumer applications continues to increase as well.
Advances in UV-C LED performance
Disinfecting flowing water and sterilizing medical instruments requires the highest possible levels of UV-C LED performance. RayVio is now in volume production of what it claims is the industry’s highest-performing UV-C LED (the XP Series, with 70mW of output). The firm remains on-track to deliver 100mW from a single device in the near future.