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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: 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.