Airlens Minus Corona by Ranjan & Saha to Restrict COVID19 Pandemic; Looks out Partners to Commercialise Manufacturing

A huge human-shaped Robot that can travel and sterilize streets or places with mass gatherings including hospitals, bus stops, stations, shopping malls, market, etc. This scene is not taken from the script of a Hollywood movie, but a reality made possible by two Indian young innovators, IIT and AIIMS Alumni, Debayan Saha and Dr. Shashi Ranjan to beat the clock to discover a cure for the virus, came up with an innovation which has been named as ‘Airlens minus Corona’ to restrict the spread of coronavirus.

Just washing hands is not only the solution for restricting the virus today. We are already familiar with the alcohol-based hand sanitizers which are an effective way to inactivate the virus, but it is useful only for humans or for sanitizing surfaces with smaller areas. However, it is deficient in such a crisis to utilise them for sanitizing entire cities.  Observing these problems Dr.Ranjan and Mr. Saha reached a conclusion to use water and electronic components for killing the virus. We interacted with these young scientists and bringing you the incredible story of this unique innovation.

The Story Behind

Debayan Saha after completing his bachelor’s and master’s degree from IIT Kharagpur moved to California to pursue Global Biodesign Fellowship at Stanford University. On the other hand, Dr. Shashi Ranjan started his technical career with an engineering degree in biotechnology from BIT Mesra and pursued a PhD in biomedical engineering from the National University of Singapore. “Our journey started at Stanford University, we met there and working on the field of medical devices.  When we came back to India, started working at AIIMS with Professor Randeep Guleria who is a pulmonologist and he was studying the harmful effects of air pollution on children and human being. This problem gave us inspiration and we both started working upon air purification technology” says Dr. Shashi Ranjan.

Shashi and Debayan founded PerSapien Innovation based at New Delhi, began their excursion towards inventing gadgets for the welfare of the individual, and to shield them from unsafe impacts of air pollution. It is a government recognized start-up under the ‘Start-up India programme'.

 

PerSapien is referred to as Each Human being, and that being the basic vision of the organization – to care for each person. “We constantly needed to take a shot at issue which affects the greater part of us that’s the main reason we started working on-air purification since air is something we all need and it is most important for human existence”, says Dr. Ranjan.

A year ago, the duo invented an air purification technology which is known as 'Minus 2.5’.  This device uses electrical energy and waves energy to modify the pollutants in such a matter that it agglomerates and tumbles down. In addition to this Dr. Ranjan stated, “when the crisis of coronavirus came, we thought that this is our responsibility to do something in this regard. We always wanted to contribute towards humanity, since we already had technical knowledge and development skills. We thought of using Minus 2.5 technology to kill the virus with electrical energy. So, we started working and finally developed it”.

He says it was easy for them to think of a new idea and execute that on account of their past development which is quite similar. Moreover, he mentioned that he learned about the power of oxidation during scientific research at NUS in Singapore which helped them to unite both the concepts of utilizing the technology of Minus2.5 alongside oxidation procedure.

How Airlens works against COVID19 Spread

The duo explains, ‘Airlens minus Corona’ operates on the mechanism of charged/ionized water droplets, which is ionized using the corona discharge. The machine disperses the ionized water droplets, which in turn oxidizes the viral protein and hence reducing it to a nonharmful molecule. However, in addition to all these Dr. Ranjan said, “it is a chemical-free procedure and it is completely safe for humans, environment as well as types of equipment as it is noncorrosive in nature”.

“We invented this machine for the Welfare of people in the plight of Covid-19, we even demonstrated the device to Municipal bodies, and they have used it.  Till now we haven’t thought about commercializing it. However, if anyone looks forward to manufacturing this on a large scale we will be happy to assist them” says Mr. Saha.

 

However, it wasn’t easy to continue to work amidst lockdown. This burden has affected them in one way or another. Firstly, it affected their working speed which initially got decreased after the lockdown was imposed. He added that the research part was going good but it was problematic to implement their research into manufacturing work, although they had a manufacturing partner i.e EPP (Electro plaza project). Even to procure any kind of resource they needed to get permission from government authorities which the duo and team able to overcome the challenges ensuring all guidelines were in place, and succeeded in their mission and tested the device under the ‘Technology Department Board'.

Dr. Ranjan says that this crisis is not for a couple of days and we all need to look at solutions for the long-term. ‘Airlens minus Corona' can also be used inside buildings of hospitals to sanitize areas that are contaminated due to positive COVID-19 patients. It is even one contribution to the safety of health workers so that they keep working and treat patients without getting infected.

However, the duo is currently working upon another advancement that is UV-Bot, a robotic system that contains UV lights. The main purpose of developing this robot is that it can go inside hospital wards and disinfect or sanitize the environment with the help of UV lights and even using minus Corona’ technology. Possibly, it will be a great measure to keep health workers safe.

This is one of the greatest examples of contribution to the nation through technological innovations. And with such incredible improvements, we will soon overcome the pandemic. For more details, visit https://persapien.com