‘Fresh air’ device ‘will kill MRSA and other superbugs’

Tri-Air Developments, legal owner of the intellectual property rights for the new device, which can be fitted to large ventilation systems, says the UK prototype has been proven to kill such organisms even without all the air in a given room being processed through the unit. The device, for which commercial manufacturing partners are being sought, “simulates the production of outdoor fresh air to destroy airborne viruses and bacteria both within and outside the machine”. To “overcome the inherent shortcomings” of each, three established decontamination technologies – non-thermal plasma, ultraviolet catalysis and “open air factor” or OAF – are combined.

The resulting “fresh air environment” is reportedly lethal to pathogenic viruses and bacteria.

Tri-Air Developments (founded by the Building Research Establishment, microbiologists at Promanade and technology transfer specialists Inventa Partners) undertook independent verification tests at the Health Protection Agency (HPA) Centre for Emergency Preparedness & Response at Porton Down last June which showed that, when exposed to the air purification system, MRSA bacteria samples on glass and metal, at concentrations similar to those found in infected hospital wards, were destroyed in under an hour. This followed testing at the same facility the previous year which confirmed that the Tri-Air unit “took less than two minutes” to kill airborne test bacteria Staphylococcus, the same genus as MRSA.

Tri-Air Developments also emphasises that the system can operate when people are present, “providing 24/7 background protection.”