Businesses develop tool to help fight COVID-19
A couple of Delaware County businessmen have developed a device they intend to be a safer way to eliminate the danger of COVID — all through using ultraviolet light.
Sun Valley alumni Ken Cage and Bob Weeks, who collaborated in founding IRG Group, an airplane and boat repossession company and subject of the reality series “Airplane Repo,” joined forces along with Mike Bernhardt and Derek Hutchinson to create the Hurricane.
The Hurricane is a 900-watt UV-C technology handheld unit that eradicates COVID-19.
UV-C light has ultraviolet wavelengths between 200 to 280 nanometers. At the higher end of that spectrum, the light can eradicate viruses and harmful bacteria. At the lower end, it has effects similar to standing under the sun at the beach.
The group, through their company The Platinum Group, developed the Hurricane after a large multi-national aviation company asked them to develop a handheld version. Other versions provided similar UV disinfectant qualities but the devices were larger — 19 inches by 14 inches by 25 inches and weighed 30 pounds.
“He took an existing technology and expanded upon it,” Weeks, Platinum’s director of sales and marketing, said of Mike Bernhardt, who’s been in manufacturing research development in the oil industry since the 1980s. “He said, ‘I can make this light better, lighter.’”
The Hurricane system looks like a black box with a spotlight. It measures 8 inches by 8 inches by 11 inches and weighs 11 pounds and can be outfitted with a shoulder strap. On its front are LED lights arranged in a 5-inch diameter circle capable of casting a 20to 30-inch wide light circle on surfaces.
“At that point, it eradicates it in less than a second from 20 inches away,” Weeks said, adding that the lights last for 10,000 hours.
The ultraviolet light itself, Cage explained, is certified as a disinfectant medical device with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“It takes the microorganism of COVID and it renders it useless,” Weeks said. “The heat scrambles the DNA of the microorganism and renders it useless.”
“We’ve tested this on every surface you could imagine,” Weeks said, including wood, plastic, leather and cotton. “You can put this on an airplane and not worry about it disintegrating any of the fabric at all.”
Cage added that in their tests, they’ve determined it would take 12 minutes to sanitize an entire Boeing 747.
Other relatively similar industrial ultraviolet sanitizing items such as one placed in the middle of a room that cleans a 600-square-foot room in eight hours runs $20,000. Another unit on the market costs $140,000. Cage said the Hurricane with the backpack and an AC/DC battery costs $17,900.
“You’re going to see it, you’re going to say, ‘How do you know it works?’” Cage said. “My question is, ‘How do you know that spray works? How do you know?’ I’ll spray a spray right here, you tell me if it killed COVID.”
Many liquid antibacterial disinfectants and cleaners use harsh chemicals, including benzalkonium chloride, which contains benzene, a class A carcinogen.
“Do you want that in your kids’ lungs?” Cage asked. “I don’t.”
And, that’s just one item. Cage said other ingredients in common cleaners include chemicals linked to reproductive and developmental problems.
“So, huge problems with what we’re commonly using,” he said.
The Hurricane only uses ultraviolet light, similar to sunlight. No additives included.
Put it on a green banana, Cage said, and within a minute, it’s brown.
The disinfectant qualities of ultraviolet light have been an emerging field of research, including a Texas A & M University study last year in which Dr. Peter Rentzepis determined that their study “provides the science behind the germicidal action of ultraviolet light.”
Tokushima University in Japan tested UV-C LED’s effectiveness in disinfecting bacteria and viruses as did researchers at Tel Aviv University last year.
Hadas Mamane, head of Tel Aviv’s Environmental Engineering Program, was quoted in The Jerusalem Post, saying, “We discovered that it is quite simple to kill the coronavirus using LED bulbs that radiate ultraviolet light.”
“There’s nothing as powerful UVA, there’s nothing,” Weeks said.
Cage said he learned about cleaning agents through a cleaning company they were using to clean their yachts in Florida, as well as some planes and casinos.
“The charter industry in South Florida was dying,” Cage said. “They were losing $180,000, $200,000, $250,000 a week. We came in with the light, done, clean, charters are going. We saved over $3 million in charters so far since middle November.”
With families of their own and having coached for years, Cage said he and his partners are passionate about keeping kids safe.
In addition, at the end of last year, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a warning about the corrosive impact to electronics, windows and other equipment like seat belts linked to the long-term use of liquid disinfectants.
In fact, other companies have developed UV cabin systems that use the ultraviolet technology to sanitize the inside of airplanes.
Weeks said The Hurricane’s technology can be implemented into an airflow system.
“We can actually put the light into an airflow system and clean all the air going into a school or a building,” Weeks added.
They also contract with cleaning companies that use the Hurricane to clean for businesses who need that service.
The Platinum Group is also developing a unit that can be used in homes, a household Hurricane, if you will, with hopes it would be available in big box retail stores.
For more information, visit platinumgrpinc.com. Discounts are available for schools and military.