Photonic Model for Airborne Viruses/Bacteria Inactivation by UV-Radiation

Since the coming of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, virus spreading in confined spaces has been in the spotlight. Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation has proven to be an efficient method of rendering airborne microorganisms inactive. In the present study, a novel model for airborne virus/bacteria inactivation using UV-light is presented. A particle-to-particle photonic approach that takes into account each of the interactions between the microorganism particles and UV-light photons is obtained. The main advantage of the presented model is its faithfulness to the physical reality of the inactivation process, i.e. that the ultraviolet inactivation effect is a stochastic process not a deterministic one. This characteristic allows the model to track and calculate the inactivation success for each of the single particles conforming a particle cloud. The model is validated against published data of inactivation of aerolized Escherichia coli bacteria in a UV-reactor and will be validated experimentally using a seasonal coronavirus in a Potential Aerosol Mass Oxidation Flow Reactor at the Helmholtz-Zentrum in Munich.