COVID-19: DRDO develops novel 'cabinet' to disinfect phones, currency notes
As COVID-19 continues to sweep across parts of India, people are doing everything possible to protect themselves from contracting the disease. Now, to help with the effort, the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation has developed devices capable of disinfecting items that are touched frequently but have a high risk of carrying the virus, say a currency note. Here's all about their technology.
Defence Research Ultraviolet Sanitizer or DRUVS
The first device, officially dubbed Defence Research Ultraviolet Sanitizer or 'DRUVS', is an automated sanitizing cabinet. It comes from Research Centre Imarat (RCI), a premier laboratory of DRDO, and can be used for the purpose of contact-less disinfection of items ranging from mobile phones, iPads, and laptops to currency notes, cheque leaves, challans, passbooks, and other paper-made materials.
360-degree UVC disinfection, without any contact
According to DRDO, the DRUVS cabinet works automatically and without involving any human contact. Its proximity sensors detect human presence, following which the drawer of the cabinet opens, allowing you to drop in the items needing disinfection. After that, the drawer closes and the device exposes the products to shortwave ultraviolet light to kill all the germs and micro-organisms they might be carrying.
After sanitization, the device goes into sleep mode
Once the products are sanitized, the device goes into sleep mode, leaving it to the user to collect the disinfected items as per their own convenience.
Dedicated currency disinfectant also created
In addition to DRUVS, the team at RCI has also created NOTESCLEAN - a dedicated platform to disinfect bundles of currency notes. DRUVS takes a lot of time to sanitize large bundles but this one quickly picks up each note from a loose bundle and passes it one by one through a series of UVC lamps for effective disinfection.
Two DRUVS unit given to virology lab in Hyderabad
Speaking to India Today, Gopinath, a senior scientist at RCI, revealed that the agency has transferred two units of DRUVS to the Mobile Virology Research and Diagnostics Laboratory (MVRDL) recently inaugurated by Union Defense Minister Rajnath Singh. He further added that Hyderabad-based Vijay Machine Tools is handling the production of these devices to make them widely available in the market.
