Basic
Principles
Ultraviolet light neutralizes viruses, bacteria and parasites
by disrupting the nucleic acid and preventing further replication. In this respect,
UVC is considered quite advantageous over other virus inactivating procedures such as solvent detergent and pasteurization
which have limited efficacy against, non-enveloped or heat stable viruses. The
fundamental problem with the use of UVC to treat solutions such as blood products is the non-specific absorption of the administered
UV energy by present proteins. For example it is estimated that about 90% of applied UVC is absorbed within the first few
microns of a blood droplet. Thus in viscous solutions containing significant amounts of viruses it can be expected that a
significant proportion will most likely be shielded from the damaging effects of the applied UVC irradiation.
The iatros Solution
To overcome this shielding/poor depth penetration barrier,
Iatros has developed a method whereby during treatment the solution is both thinned and mixed by passage through a UVC penetrable
pipe containing a series of static mixers.
Using
this technology clients have developed conditions which kill both enveloped and non-enveloped viruses from products without
significantly effecting the quality/function of their products.
The
process is continuous and can be bespoked to client's needs.
High optically dense products can be processed at high volumes in normal industrial production
time scales without the need for dilution.
