The science of germicidal ultraviolet irradiation made its first big impact on health care when Neils Finsen won the 1903 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his use of ultraviolet irradiation against tuberculosis. Since then, ultraviolet irradiation has gained wide spread adoption in water treatment, air disinfection, food processing, and microbiology bio-hazard containment cabinets.
Although widely used, germicidal irradiation is not widely understood. Information sources have been hard to obtain. Research articles are difficult to interpret. They are written in the language of microbiology, physics, mathematics and contain wide variations in method. To be used properly, germicidal irradiation is engineering intensive. Product developers are very protective of their proprietary knowledge because gaining this knowledge is costly and difficult; the simple purchase of a germicidal lamp is not. Using independently published texts, this document will demonstrate the following:
- The science of designing ultraviolet lamps for specific application is well developed.
- Ultraviolet disinfection is known by regulating agencies and authoritative reference texts to be accomplished by wavelengths of 245 to 285 nm.
- Pulse UV lamps and Continuous UV lamps inactivate microorganisms by the same mechanism, 245 to 285 nm light.
- The only significant factor in disinfection is the total UV dose intensity does not change dose requirements, momentary intensity does not change required dose.
