A powerful air-sterilization device has been developed at UB to
combat infections in hospitals and protect soldiers from biological
attack.
The BioBlower rapidly and continuously eradicates airborne
pathogens, such as avian flu, SARS and influenza viruses, as well
as airborne biological pathogens, such as anthrax.
So far, the technology has proved successful in killing every
biological agent with which it has been challenged. In independent
tests conducted for the U.S. Department of Defense, it killed
airborne spores, viruses and bacteria to a level of better than one
part per million.
“That’s better than any conventional technology on
the market,” says James F. Garvey, PhD, UB professor of
chemistry, who invented the BioBlower with John Lordi, PhD,
research professor in the UB Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering. “When we input one million live, active spores
of a thermally resistant bacterium into the BioBlower, only one
live spore comes out.”
Through compressive heating and pressure oscillations that break up
and kill pathogens, the BioBlower’s dual-use technology is
expected to eradicate even the smallest of airborne biological
pathogens, including pollen and mold.
The technology is inherently scalable. Once it is a permanently
installed feature of an air-handling system, it can create sterile
environments anywhere—from government buildings to mass
transit systems to military bases.
Applied to health care, the BioBlower could be a powerful
antidote to hospital-acquired infections, which kill 100,000 people
a year.
The BioBlower represents a significant improvement over current
air-sterilization technology, which involves the use of
high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters.
“With HEPA filters, the spores are still alive, once
they're collected, waiting to infect somebody,” Garvey
explains. “We kill them at the source.”
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