Assessment of performance of UV sterilizer for room air bacteria.

Paper presents a technique for performance of UV sterilizer for room air bacteria. Patterns of decay of room air bacteria concentration during sterilization and build-up there after as a function of time is studied. Decay process seems to follow exponential pattern. Half-lives during decay are estimated. For single sterilizer unit with a dose of 16 W the decay half-life is around 8.6 min. For the dose of 32 W (2 sterilizers), half-life is estimated to be 6.18 min. The removal rates of room air bacteria due to sterilizer are compared with the natural decay of aerosols at steady state. The importance of decay half-life in the assessment has been stated. The bacteria concentration buildup process after putting off the sterilizers seems to be sigmoidal in nature. The buildup half-life is estimated to be around 53 min for present experimental conditions.