Two teenage science students from Hong Kong recently won second place at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for their new invention, a door handle that kills germs on contact.
Door handles are one of the most common causes of the spreading of sicknesses because they are touched commonly by so many people throughout the day. Elevator buttons, stair handles, and other surfaces are also high traffic areas that tend to collect a lot of germs, and this same process can be applied to these same surfaces as well.
Hong Kong students Sum Ming Wong and Kin Pong Li have luckily come up with a solution for this problem. Knowing that certain minerals kill germs on contact, the students decided to research which minerals would be the best choices. They decided on using titanium dioxide to coat the door handle and installed a UV light as well, to provide additional sanitization.
The UV light doesn’t even require any electricity; the unit is installed with a box that captures energy from the door opening and closing, allowing the light to shine without a power source.
Tests found that the door handle was 99.8 percent effective at killing germs.
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