People could now not worry as scientists discovered a way to wear or wipe sanitizers in a form of paper. The device was mentioned to beat any bacteria by sanitizing any area that it came contact within 10 seconds of treatment.
According to Science Daily, the inexpensive and effective way to use paper-based sanitizers was made by researchers from Rutgers University. The device was decided to be made from paper since it was identified by the team to be ancient yet has unique attributes for new, high-tech applications.
"We found that by applying a high voltage to stacked sheets of metallized paper, we were able to generate plasma, which is a combination of heat, ultraviolet radiation and ozone that kill microbes," Aaron Mazzeo, an assistant professor in Rutgers' Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering stated.
With that said, the sanitizer paper was described to be consisted of “laminated assemblies of honeycomb-patterned, metallized paper. The paper-based sanitizer was also made capable of changing shapes to adapt into sanitizing curved edges. Treatment was described to only consist of 10 seconds upon wiping it as stated in the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Furthermore, as the paper-based sanitizer was said to consist of aluminum and hexagon/honeycomb layers, it was noted that those serve as gateways for the device to produce plasma or ionized gas. Jingjin Xie, the study's lead author and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering then shared that they ought to be the first team to integrate the use of paper in producing plasma.
Qiang (Richard) Chen, study co-author and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Plant Biology in Rutgers' School of Environmental and Biological Sciences further explained the importance of the paper-based sanitizer per Phys Org. He stated that the results had shown that the paper-based sanitizer had successfully killed spores from bacteria that are hard to kill using conventional sterilization methods.
The study was concluded to have their paper-based sanitizer to successfully have killed more than 99 percent of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a yeast species) and more than 99.9 percent of E. coli bacteria cells. The research team also shared that they would now experiment on how their device would kill spores and how it would be integrated into other uses like clothing, smart bandages and more.
