Ozone sanitation system to clean up apparel

The patented technology - created by University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and Advanced Clothing Solutions (ACS) via the KTP programme – is set to be scaled up for commercial use with financial support from Scottish Enterprise.

The project will take ideas proven at lab-scale to develop a sanitisation chamber for installation at ACS’s automated fashion fulfilment facility on the outskirts of Glasgow.

Ozone, which is formed naturally through the interaction of solar ultraviolet (UV) and molecular oxygen (O2), can eradicate 99.7 per cent of 650 different kinds of pathogenic organisms.

Dr Mohammed Yaseen, of UWS’s School of Computing, Engineering and Physical Sciences, explained that the new solution creates ozone via UV or corona discharge, with the latter being more efficient, particularly for large scale ozone generation.

“We have a small unit with controlled ozone levels and a large unit for industrial automated garment sterilisation,” he said. “The air trapped within an air-tight chamber is usually sufficient to generate high quantities of ozone – up to 50ppm within a 100m³ volume.”