Congratulations to our student team, comprising four MAEG undergraduate students Miss NG Hui Yin, Mr. LEUNG Hing Chun, Mr. LI Fengsen and Mr. YIM Ming Yeung Arthur, for receiving the Outstanding Award in ASM Technology Award 2022 held on 30 June 2022.

Project: Surface and Air Disinfection with Atmospheric Non-Thermal Plasma

Supervisors: Prof. WONG Hay & Prof. CHEN Chun

Project Description:

In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, it would be beneficial for the general public to have access to cost-effective disinfection devices.

Conventional air purifier and indoor air change are thought to be insufficient when it comes to reducing the risk of spread. Whilst bioaerosols are travelling to the air purifier/ ventilation systems, they may be inhaled by people present along the air flow path.

Our team believes that disinfection should occur at the source of infection. When compared to typical disinfection systems looking to disinfect a shared space, our prototypes aim to perform decontamination locally in one’s immediate surrounding. We developed three prototypes: (1) a table-mount air disinfection system, (2) a miniature air disinfection device, and (3) a hand-held surface disinfection gun. These prototypes make use of atmospheric non-thermal plasma generated by corona discharge to locally disinfect air and/or surfaces.

Our devices are easy to fabricate (<30 mins), cost-effective (<HKD 700) and with low power consumption (<5W). Pilot disinfection trials with agar plates for growing assorted moulds and bacteria show significant disinfection effect (99% and 76% in air and surface devices respectively).

(1) Table-mount air disinfection system

(2) Miniature air disinfection device

(3) Hand-held surface disinfection gun