Flux Violette: Multirole UV Disinfection

The world is facing a dangerous shortage in masks and PPEs. There's also growing need for efficient means of air and surface disinfection. Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) is established protocol for such, and has recently emerged as a leading method for mask disinfection as well.

At Flux Violette we've made 2 game changing UVGI technologies:

1) A multifunctional germicidal UV lamp that can interconvert between a stationary lamp for air & surface disinfection, a handheld light for disinfection of large items, and a cabinet for disinfection of small items 

2) A smart AI controller and human activity sensor network for automating UV lamp disinfection of spaces based on human usage.

We will sell our hardware in developed locales and also implement a rental/free-borrow program so our devices can be rotated to areas of greatest need. The basic design will also be open sourced to promote applications of UV sanitization. 

The world is facing a dangerous mask shortage. 2 billion people are advised to wear masks outside and tens of millions of healthcare workers use them everyday. Prices of respirators have increased >5x in some localities, depriving many hard hit but resource limited countries adequate supplies.

Our point of use germicidal UVC lamp safely sanitizes masks for reuse. It can also be used to sanitize air and surfaces as a standing lamp, with proximity and human activity sensors for doing so autonomously.

We serve frontline and healthcare workers by sanitizing their masks for reuse, protecting them from infection. When used as a standing lamp in hospitals and long term care facilities, it also benefits the residents by sanitizing air and surfaces.

Our UVGI lamp serves in the prevention and rapid response to emerging outbreaks. By sanitizing masks at point-of-use, it increases mask availability and protects health workers especially in resource limited locales. By sanitizing air and surfaces, it improves personal hygiene and prevents infections. 

* Patent pending multifunctional design that combines features of UVGI cabinet for sanitizing small items, UVGI handheld lamp for sanitizing large surfaces, and standing UVGI lamp for whole room air disinfection. With just one device, frontline workers not only can sanitize masks but also sanitize larger gowns and entire rooms.

* The lamp acts as safety shield that protects user from direct and reflected UV

* The lamp can be placed on a surface for set duration, ensuring UV dosing consistency and reducing hand strain

* The human activity sensor enables autonomous continuous disinfection of entire spaces 

UVGI (ultraviolet germicidal irradiation) / far-UVC: widely used conventional sanitization method. In future we plan to use far-UVC which uses a far safer wavelength with similar efficacy though supplies of far-UVC light tubes are still exorbitantly expensive. 

AI autonomous control: as a standing lamp our device uses human activity sensor (IR/US) to detect human presence and an optimal control algorithm to switch ON/OFF UV lighting to minimize human exposure and maximize sanitization 

We currently use 254nm UVGI which is widely used in industry, laboratories and healthcare for sanitization of food, air, water and surfaces. In future we plan to use 222nm far-UVC which uses a far safer wavelength (https://www.nature.com/article...). 

With our lamp, frontline workers can sanitize respirator masks for reuse, drastically increasing mask availability and decreasing risk of infection. Health of frontline and healthcare workers is vital to maintaining the healthcare infrastructure. Without adequate PPE, healthcare workers get sick and patients can't be properly treated, thus increasing increasing mortality as research suggests. Numerous hospitals like University of Nebraska have successfully implemented UV mask decontamination (https://www.nebraskamed.com/sites/default/files/documents/covid-19/n-95-decon-process.pdf). Our device provides point-of-use sanitization without an elaborate setup or process. Globally, significant adoption of UV sanitization of masks in one locale can reduce global aggregate mask demand, lower prices, and make masks more available in other locales. 

As of 6/18 we just manufactured 500 unit batch of the basic lamp (without autonomous control and sensing which is still R&D). Within 3 months we expect to distribute to approximately 200 frontline workplaces, serving ~5000 workers. Manufacturing is massively scalable so within 1 year with enough working capital we can manufacture 100,000 units and serve over 2 million workers, potentially many more.

Continue manufacturing our lamp and distributing to workplaces 

Finish R&D of sensor control system

Find distribution partners especially in developing countries 

Open source our design

Financial: need working capital to fund manufacturing 

Distribution: especially in developing countries 

Financial: raise funding, monetize sales in developed countries and to individuals, implement rental or free-borrow program to lower costs to adoption and to rotate lamp to areas of greatest need with time

Also open source design so can be locally manufactured 

Distribution: seek out partnership with channels and orgs 

Full-time: 1

Part-time / contractors: 8

Paul Shen 

Stanford University MS Electrical Engineering, BS Math
Left medical school to pursue entrepreneurship 
Cofounder at software NLP startup, training in both engineering and medicine 

Junnan Li

Postdoc researcher at Washington University School of Medicine 
Extensive distribution channels for health related products 

We're still building partnerships principally for marketing and distribution. This is our area of need, why we're applying to Solve! 

Hardware sale of lamp: faster return on capital 

Rental of lamp: sustainable revenue stream and ability to rotate lamp to areas of greatest need with time 

Above revenue streams can fund below-cost distribution to developing countries. There the preferred method is free use of lamp (free-borrow) for set duration when need is greatest. Maximizes social return on capital. 

Hardware sale of lamp: faster return on capital 

Rental of lamp: sustainable revenue stream and ability to rotate lamp to areas of greatest need with time 

Leverage Solve's network to gain partnerships in distribution particularly to resource constrained locales

Honestly distribution and marketing are our biggest challenges. It'd be nice to raise working capital for manufacturing as well with Solve's help as well.

Leverage Solve's reach to gain PR and marketing exposure for our product and provide education on UV sanitization of masks for reuse

Marketing and distributing partners 

PR exposure 

Labs for more carefully quantifying UV dosage in more use cases, more extensive user studies 

The world is facing a dangerous shortage in masks and PPEs. There's also growing need for efficient means of air and surface disinfection. Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) is established protocol for such, and has recently emerged as a leading method for mask disinfection as well.

At Flux Violette we've made 2 game changing UVGI technologies:

1) A multifunctional germicidal UV lamp that can interconvert between a stationary lamp for air & surface disinfection, a handheld light for disinfection of large items, and a cabinet for disinfection of small items 

2) A smart AI controller and human activity sensor network for automating UV lamp disinfection of spaces based on human usage. The AI for Humanity Prize will greatly help us finetune our algorithm to deliver needed UV dose to air and surfaces while minimizing human exposure to UV.

We will sell our hardware in developed locales and also implement a rental/free-borrow program so our devices can be rotated to areas of greatest need. The basic design will also be open sourced to promote applications of UV sanitization. 

The world is facing a dangerous shortage in masks and PPEs. There's also growing need for efficient means of air and surface disinfection. Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) is established protocol for such, and has recently emerged as a leading method for mask disinfection as well.

At Flux Violette we've made 2 game changing UVGI technologies:

1) A multifunctional germicidal UV lamp that can interconvert between a stationary lamp for air & surface disinfection, a handheld light for disinfection of large items, and a cabinet for disinfection of small items 

2) A smart AI controller and human activity sensor network for automating UV lamp disinfection of spaces based on human usage.

We will sell our hardware in developed locales and also implement a rental/free-borrow program so our devices can be rotated to areas of greatest need. The basic design will also be open sourced to promote applications of UV sanitization. 

The world is facing a dangerous shortage in masks and PPEs. There's also growing need for efficient means of air and surface disinfection. Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) is established protocol for such, and has recently emerged as a leading method for mask disinfection as well.

At Flux Violette we've made 2 game changing UVGI technologies:

1) A multifunctional germicidal UV lamp that can interconvert between a stationary lamp for air & surface disinfection, a handheld light for disinfection of large items, and a cabinet for disinfection of small items 

2) A smart AI controller and human activity sensor network for automating UV lamp disinfection of spaces based on human usage.

We will sell our hardware in developed locales and also implement a rental/free-borrow program so our devices can be rotated to areas of greatest need. The basic design will also be open sourced to promote applications of UV sanitization.