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Two high school students, Sum Ming Wong and Kin Pong Li, both living in Hong Kong have designed and built a door handle that kills germs, thus preventing the spread of disease through hand contact. They demonstrated their handle at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair held last month in Pittsburgh—taking second place in the materials science category.
One of the ways that ailments such as cold and flu are passed is via contact, and one of the main avenues is via door handles—a sick person coughs into their hand then uses the handle to enter a bathroom, office, or other location, depositing germs. Others that enter the same room pick up the germs from the door handle and invite the germs into their own bodies by touching their eyes or noses. Door handles that kill such germs on contact would stop them from spreading—that is what Wong and Li set out to build.
The pair started by noting that a mineral called titanium dioxide is quite toxic to germs, but it hasn't been used as an antibacterial agent much because it requires the presence of UV light. To get around this problem, the team ground some of the mineral and then used it to coat a glass tube, they then affixed a LED onto one end of the tube—it shines UV light onto the insides of the glass tube—any germs that land on the outer side are then killed by the mineral (testing showed it to be 99.8% effective). Putting the glass tube onto brackets allowed for it to be used as a door handle.
Read More at PHYS.ORG
[Source]: Society for Science & the Public
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday June 23 2015, @03:55PM
Really, why do we need door handles on shared doors like bathrooms? Use of a two-way crash bar would solve much of the transference. Or even motion sensors, like supermarkets?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @04:56PM
Door knob = $9
Crash bar = $129
But what's money got to do with it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @07:50PM
UV & titanium dioxide door knob & batteries = over $129
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @01:22AM
Titanium dioxide is commonly used to make white paint.
You can get a gallon of really good paint for under $40.
So, that doesn't seem to to be a major cost factor.
A while back, for 99c (qty 1), I bought a flashlight with 7 LEDs.
They are practically giving away LEDs these days.
It's *batteries* that seem to be the big variable in this equation.
What UV intensity is required? What duty cycle?
How are you going to make them replaceable without making them easy to steal?
What is the recharging mechanism?
How do you get the juice from the door jamb to the door?
How do you make that electrical path bulletproof (vandal-resistant)? [google.com]
VLM mentions below the amount of schmutz that quickly collects on glass doors, forming a translucent layer.
Is that schmutz opaque to UV?
I'd like to see the results of some real-world tests on this concept.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday June 23 2015, @05:29PM
I wonder too as I never touch them directly. Usually I just grab part of my shirt, or sleeve, and use that.
Personally, I don't see the use for the knob at all unless it's a single person bathroom and a privacy issue. I don't know about the cost, but the idea of a crash bar appeals to me, but I want to remove the hands from the equation entirely. Make it a foot operated bar to open the door.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:27PM
I have seen these [stepnpull.com] in a few restaurant, they work quite well.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hankwang on Tuesday June 23 2015, @06:48PM
Are doorknobs really so filthy that you need to bother? Although... on the very few occasions that I was in the US, I noticed that they had these hot-air hand driers in most places. In practice, that means: blow for 20 seconds (while the invisible germs are being blown around), then give up and open the door with still semi-wet hands, and the door handle is still wet from the previous users.
Fortunately, over here (Netherlands), paper towels or cloth towel dispensers are much more common.
Avantslash: SoylentNews for mobile [avantslash.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by edIII on Tuesday June 23 2015, @08:16PM
I assume they have Ebola on them, myself.
Being a man, I can tell you that a percentage of my lot are the most disgusting, unhygienic, raised-in-a-barn screaming monkeys, and that I'm just happy when they're not feces everywhere and pools of urine.
Issue of trust I guess. If I knew it was only mature adults in the restroom, perhaps. So in a lawyers offices on the 90th floor... maybe you could touch the handle. In a movie theater on Friday during summer? Just pee into the bathroom from the hallway. Nobody will notice.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:29PM
Indeed. Frankly, having some guy open the door with his "semi-wet hands" is the least of our worries; at least he bothered to wash his hands. I recall a study from several years back which looked at hygiene in restaurants. I recall that they found the highest concentration of fecal material was on the used eating utensils. Apparently a lot of people don't wash their hands after taking a dump. The guys where I work seem to be particularly filthy and unhygienic. I know at least one of the guys here does not wash his hands after taking a dump. Just recently I entered a restroom here at work to find that some guy had taken a massive dump then "forgot" to flush the toilet. Then there are the times I have found little bits and pieces of toilet paper strewn all over the floor. Then, of course, there are all the times when the floor is covered in urine and paper towels. Seriously, do you guys behave this way at home?!? Most of the guys at work are married; I can't imagine their wives letting them get away with this (*ahem*) shit. So, yeah, I really can believe that the restroom door knobs are horrendously filthy.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Wierd0n3 on Wednesday June 24 2015, @12:15AM
I work at a convenience store, and i can tell you, girls can be MUCH worse. I've never had the same cleanup issues in the men's room as the girls. we may miss the toilet on aiming, but we also don't have feminine products that we leave in the middle of the floor for whoever else follows us to find and deal with for us.
I could list a few paragraphs of the things i have found working at night, but lets just leave it at that thank you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @08:25PM
Personally I prefer a hot air blower to an empty paper towel dispenser. People are very wasteful with paper towels. Many take three or more right away and only use the middle instead of taking one and using all of it. Also, there are hot air blowers that work well enough. A high air volume is more important than a high temperature (and cheaper too).
Anyone designing a building with public restrooms should simply not put any doors in, but make the entrance go around a corner or a wall to block the view. Tall "saloon" doors that swing open both ways are an option for older buildings.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @01:26AM
make the entrance go around a corner or a wall to block the view
That's the way they've been doing it in airports for many decades.
Now, it does take just a bit more space.
...then there are the true idiots who don't have a clue how to design a lavatory:
The door opens inward and the trash receptacle is far away from the door.
(If there is an inward-opening door, the most sanitary method to operate the door is to use the paper towel you just used and grab the knob|handle with that, block the door open with your foot, toss the towel, and exit.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 2, Informative) by Wierd0n3 on Wednesday June 24 2015, @12:10AM
more commonly, I've seen newer walmarts and movie theatres not even having doors, just open z shaped hallways to keep privacy between the sexes.
a few years ago, i remember hearing about a shark skin film coating that was supposed to make surfaces uninhabitable by microbes. i wonder if there was any progress there.
https://www.google.com/search?q=shark+skin&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=shark%20skin%20antimicrobial [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @08:43PM
Really, why do we need door handles on shared doors like bathrooms?
Perhaps because giving Darwin the finger isn't the brightest thing to do when it comes to resistance to germs. Those children who play in the filthy dirt have stronger immune systems. Artificial antibiotics weaken the human race.
Your point is valid, though it's a pointless exercise in first world problem solving. One could simply not have any doors on the stalls or bathroom doors given an appropriate structural obscurity such as an S or 90 degree turn ending at the toilet after a short channel.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Wednesday June 24 2015, @05:45AM
Because I don't want the stall door to open every time somebody walks by.