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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
These last few weeks we've all been reminded about the importance of washing our hands. It's not complicated: you just need soap, water, and about 30 seconds worth of effort. In a pinch you can even use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. But what if there was an even better way of killing bacteria and germs on our hands? One that's easy, fast, and doesn't even require you to touch anything. There might be, if you've got a high voltage generator laying around.
In his latest video, [Jay Bowles] proposes a novel concept: using the ozone generated by high-voltage corona discharge for rapid and complete hand sterilization. He explains that there's plenty of research demonstrating the effectiveness of ozone gas [as] a decontamination agent, and since it's produced in abundance by coronal discharge, the high-voltage generators of the sort he experiments with could double as visually striking hand sanitizers.
[...] Despite what appears to be the nearly complete eradication of bacteria on his hands after exposing them to the ozone generator, [Jay] is quick to point out that he's not trying to give out any medical advice with this video. This simple experiment doesn't cover all forms of bacteria, and he doesn't have the facilities to test the method against viruses. The safest thing you can do right now is follow the guidelines from agencies like the CDC and just wash your hands the old fashioned way; but the concept outlined here certainly looks worthy of further discussion and experimentation.
Source: https://hackaday.com/2020/04/28/washing-your-hands-with-20000-volts/
[Ed Note - A lot of the comments in the hackaday article express concern about exposure to ozone at the levels that are generated here. Don't try this at home kids!]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 07 2020, @08:30PM (5 children)
Just be sure to breathe deeply, right at the coronal discharge.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 07 2020, @10:01PM
Yep, an old friend used to comment on the copy room at the office (full of corona wires in the copy machines) -- "That nice fresh smell of ozone turns your lungs to leather."
But it is kind of cool to think of fighting corona with corona... Kind of like the old Mad Magazine Spy vs. Spy.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 08 2020, @06:34AM (3 children)
Naah, go the east Germans who installed "gamma guns" at their border crossings built around Cs137 emitters, that'll sterilise you!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 08 2020, @07:20AM (2 children)
Citation needed!
(Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Friday May 08 2020, @07:28AM (1 child)
Couldn't find an obvious one but it was well-known in Germany. Best I could find was this, see item #13 [sachsen-anhalt.de].
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday May 11 2020, @05:48AM
Correction, #23, not #13, it's a tiny font.
Speaking of scary radiation-based stuff at the border, if you catch a bus out of Russia they run some sort of high-radiation-dose scan over the bus as you cross the border, everyone on the bus has to leave and stand some distance away. Should have left a dosimeter in my luggage to check what it was, and at what level... no idea why they bothered or what they were looking for.