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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: 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_