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 The Corona Virus 

Virus PropertiesPandemic SituationLocal Situation

Cleaning of Surfaces 

What surfaces are there?What Properties do Surfaces have?What challenges are there?

How to deactivate virus


What properties do surfaces have?

 

Skin is a tight tissue. Body entries are the wet mucous surfaces of nose, mouth, and the eyes  as well as wounds.


Social distancing combined with proper hand hygiene are good anti-infection measures. 

Inanimate surfaces may potentially stay contaminated after contact from an infected person for long times, depending on environment conditions as humidity and temperature, and when different individuals may share facilities, one after the other. Examples are handles of doors or supermarket carts, buttons of automated doors and escalators, tables, counters and seats in service facilities, sports equipments, ... . 

Moreover, these surfaces are made of diverse materials, as are metal, carton, plastic, leather, ... and they exhibit diverse surface qualities regarding smoothness and absorptive capacity, be it generic as in textile tissues and leather pores or use related as in small holes or wrinkles. 

All these reservoirs and caverns may take up pollutions as the tiny volumes of virus particles (150-200nm, each of them bearing a genome of some 30kbases). Therefore, any cleaning agent must aim to 

  1. enter into tiny holes by thorough wetting,
  2. de-activate all viruses by dissolving the envelope,
  3. remove leftover by flushing and drying.

 

 


 © 2020 Dr. Beate Klösgen
Associate Professor
University of Southern Denmark
Dr. Hermann-Stephan Buchkremer
Technische Unternehmensberatung
Bocholtzerstr. 40
D 52072 Aachen