Does anyone have any information on whether the range of commercially available UV LEDs can be used for germicidal sterilization?
I’ve done some research and it doesn’t seem like the LEDs can get down to the correct wavelength but I was wondering if any dopers know better.
I was a little surprised to find that anyone had produced commercial UV LEDs, since a big deal was made about the blue-light ones just recently, and blue has a longer (i.e. easier to produce) wavelength.
My fast research turned up BivarOpto, which has inexpensive UV-LEDs which (eventually) “can be used for sterilization”. Their current products can produce wavelengths of 390-410nm, which these guys say is useless for sterilization (“Ultraviolet radiation at a wavelength exceeding 280 n meters has little germicidal value when used as a disinfectant for living microorganisms.”)
BivarOpto is “developing a range of lower wavelength products in the near term to address a host of new applications opportunities that the 400nm product simply can’t support.”
Give it a few more months.
Looks that way, yes; according to The LED Museum, the furthest they go into UV is 290nm, commercial sterilising equipment seems to be using much shorter wavelengths (180 - 250nm).
I bought a couple of hundred of them on eBay direct from the factory in China - they aren’t ‘true’ UV (‘near UV’ or ‘Violet’ is probably more correct), but the wavelength is short enough to stimulate fluorescent dyes.