Disposable gloves produce UV-C to disinfect Hospital Acquired Infections

PITTSBURGH - June 24, 2015 - PRLog -- .

Introduction
Today, HAI as grounds of bringing lawsuits is more important than ever. HAI stands for hospital acquired infections. Hand disinfection prevents about 30% of HAI if done properly. In hectic hospital routines, however, hand hygiene is frequently neglected – the compliance rate is 30-60%. Moreover, hand washing is time consuming and HAI may reoccur anytime surfaces in the hospital are subsequently touched by health workers. What this means is hand hygiene by washing cannot protect against HAI as the hands must be washed each and every time hospital surfaces are touched, and even then washing facilities may not be convenient. But this is unacceptable as health care workers would be required to always be washing their hands leaving little time to attend to other duties or to the attention of their patients. Even non-touch procedures do not protect against HAI as they are always present in the air that may later attach to hospital surfaces. Gloves that allow touching avoid continual hand washing by keeping the gloves on and spraying them with disinfectant, or hand washing without taking off the gloves. However, the WHO claims microbial resistance of the glove material may be impaired by washing and the disinfectants may penetrate the glove wall and get into the skin. Regardless, the recent ICPIC focused on proper procedures for washing hands of health care workers. See http://www.icpic.com/files/ICPIC2015/ProgrammeOverview.pdf

Proposal
Similar to the UV-C disinfection [1] of Ebola on surfaces and pathogens in drinking water from body heat using nano-coated bowls, QED induced EM radiation from NPs molded into disposable gloves is proposed to disinfect HAI. QED stands for quantum electrodynamics, EM stands for electromagnetic, and NPs for nanoparticles. Importantly, QED disnfection differs from microbial disinfection, the latter requiring contact of the HAI with the NP to allow chemical disinfection. In contrast, QED induces UV-C radiation from body heat in the fingers and may disinfect HAI at a distance, although the low intensity of UV-C limits the disinfection to nearby NPs. Regardless, QED disinfection does not require the HAI to contact the NPs

QED conversion of body heat to UV-C finds basis in the QM interpretation of the atom by the Planck law that precludes the atoms in NPs from having the heat capacity to conserve absorbed body heat by an increase in temperature. QM stands for quantum mechanics. Instead, QED conserves body heat absorbed in NPs by frequency up-conversion to their TIR resonance. TIR stands for total internal reflection. See numerous QED applications at http://www.nanoqed.org/, 2010 – 2015.

Description
The QED embodiment of UV-C disinfecting HAI is depicted in the thumbnail for a cross-section taken along the finger in relation to the inner and outer gloves. A pair of gloves is proposed because of the difficulty in molding a single glove with distinct ZnO NP sizes and concentrations, although later a single glove may be shown feasible. In operation, body heat from the finger passes through the inner glove and then into the outer glove. In the 100 μm thick outer glove, UV-C created from body heat absorbed in the 50 nm ZnO NPs is shown to disinfect HAI near the outer glove surface. The outer glove material is UV-C transparent, e.g., nitrile rubber. In contrast, the 200 μm thick inner glove comprises 200 nm ZnO NPs that protect the skin of the finger by absorbing any UV-C from the outer glove to produce NIR which is not harmful to the skin. The inner glove material need not be UV-C absorbent as absorption occurs in the 200 nm NPs.

Theory
QED induced EM radiation is confined almost totally in the TIR mode of the NPs because of their high surface to volume ratio. Absorbed body heat therefore traps itself to the NP surface to form the temporary TIR confinement during which time QED converts the trapped EM energy to standing wave UV-C radiation between opposing NP surfaces having half-wavelength λ/(2 n) = d, where d and n are the diameter and refractive index of the NP. Since the standing UV-C radiation is created from the trapped energy in the surfaces, the TIR confinement vanishes and the UV-C radiation promptly escapes the NP to disinfect HAI.

Applied to the outer glove, the EM radiation created in the NPs has TIR wavelength λ at frequency υ = c/λ, where c is the velocity of light and wavelength λ = 2 nd. QED induced EM radiation is therefore created in the NP having Planck energy E = hυ, where h is Planck’s constant. Since NPs have diameters d in the nanometer range, the Planck energy E is sufficient to produce UV-C radiation, e.g., for ZnO having n = 2.5 and d = 50 nm, UV-C is created at λ ≈ 254 nm. However, the EM radiation from the outer glove may also damage the skin of the fingers that provide the body heat. To protect the skin against prolonged exposure to damaging UV-C radiation, the inner glove comprises large ZnO nanoparticles having d = 200 nm that upon absorbing UV-C produce EM radiation at λ ≈ 1000 nm which is in the NIR and not harmful to the skin.

Discussion and Conclusion
Avoiding HAI by washing hands in water with disinfectants has been promoted by WHO and ICPIC over the past 20 years, even though hands are not washed  each and every time hospital surfaces are touched. In this regard, the difficulty in the continual removal of HAI by hand washing may be metaphorically compared to Shakespeare’s Macbeth when the Doctor observing Lady Macbeth remarks: “Look, how she rubs her hands” to which the Servant responds: “It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thus washing her hands…I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.” In desperation, Lady Macbeth then remarks: “Yet here's a spot. Out, damned spot! out, I say!”

QED avoids the metaphor on hand washing from Shakespeare by offering constant UV-C disinfection of HAI that attach to, or are in the air near the outer glove surface. i.e., disinfection occurs as the 50 nm NPs in the outer glove produce UV-C upon absorbing body heat from the fingers. Otherwise, the UV-C is absorbed in the 200 nm NPs of the inner glove to protect the skin of the fingers that supply the body heat. Since disinfection of HAI only requires body heat, the UV-C gloves are of great interest in the developing world that lacks sources of electricity.

References
[1] T. Prevenslik, “QED disinfection of Ebola and drinking water,” 3^rd International Conference on Prevention & Infection Control, June 16-19, 2015, Geneva