A novel upper-room UVC-LED irradiation system for disinfection of indoor bioaerosols under different operating and airflow conditions

The potential of inactivating indoor bacteria aerosols using a novel rotating ultraviolet-C (UV-C) light-emitting-diode (LED) system was investigated. The system was installed in the upper level of a full scale chamber and its effectiveness against aerosolized E. coli, S. marcescens, and S. epidermidis under the well-mixed with stationary UV-LED scenario was initially tested. The estimated susceptibility values were 1.068, 1.148, and 0.156 m²/J for E. coli, S. marcescens, and S. epidermidis, respectively. Three additional scenarios of experiments were conducted, in which E. coli was aerosolized into the test chamber and then allowed to decay under (i) poorly-mixed condition with stationary system, (ii) well-mixed with rotating system, and (iii) poorly-mixed conditions with rotating system. Our results showed no significant difference between the performance of stationary and rotating UR-UVGI-LED systems under a well-mixed condition. While the performance of the stationary UR-UVGI-LED system under a poorly-mixed condition decreased by 52.90–79.38 % compared to a well-mixed condition, rotating the UR-UVGI-LED system under a poorly-mixed condition, compared to the stationary system, enhanced its performance by 22.36–49.86 %. Thus, our proposed rotating irradiation offers great potential for application in environments where bioaerosols are unevenly distributed in a built environment.