Novatron, Inc. Technology

TECHNOLOGY

Under Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsorship, Novatron, Inc. has developed a unique technology platform that can be used to protect facilities and personnel against bio-terrorism attacks. Defense applications include protecting military and government facilities worldwide and protecting important civilian facilities as part of a homeland defense strategy. Other applications include air purification for hospitals (operating rooms, oncology units, bone marrow transplant facilities, isolation rooms, etc.), air sterilization for pharmaceutical and other manufacturing clean rooms; and air treatment for commercial buildings to improve indoor air quality. Other applications of the technology include surface sterilization and UV curing. Novatron is also developing technology for ultra sensitive detection of chemical and biological agents.

AIR STERILIZATION

Novatron's air sterilization technology is based on a novel, very high intensity, Advanced UV System (AUVS) that rapidly and effectively destroys biological agents. The UV intensity produced by the AUVS is 1000 times that produced by conventional low power UV germicidal systems. As a result, the system is uniquely effective. The sterilization effects obtained are significantly greater than those achievable with conventional UV systems.

The AUVS can be inserted into HVAC air ducts to kill airborne microorganisms. When used to treat air in an air duct, the pressure drop created by the system is negligible and the operating costs are very low. Laboratory testing shows that the technology is highly effective for destroying Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus pumilus endospores that are significantly more resistant to UV than anthrax spores. Up to 7 orders of magnitude (7 logs, or 99.9999%) kill of B. subtilis and B. pumilus spores have been demonstrated with the AUVS technology.

The AUVS technology is scalable from small units suitable for treating airflow volumes of less than 200 cfm to larger systems with airflow volumes greater than 100,000 cfm. Based on the AUVS technology, Novatron has developed a line of equipment for air sterilization, the BioProtector™ product line. BioProtector™ products built to date span the range from 300 cfm to 60,000 cfm. These systems are designed for installation in the HVAC system of a building, or portion of a building, to sterilize air flowing in the building's air ducts, or provide sterile air for selected parts of the building.

Novatron's AUVS technology differs significantly from conventional low power germicidal UV technology. Low power germicidal UV systems have been advocated for many years for treating air in buildings. However, they produce low photon flux, and consequently, are not very effective. Such conventional low power UV systems provide only very low microbial reduction levels and require long exposure time for microbial kill. Because of their low photon flux, large systems with a very large number of lamps would be required to give exposure levels needed for even low kill of microorganisms in high velocity airflow in an air duct. The AUVS uses an innovative patent-pending flux density multiplication technology to produce very high UV intensities with only modest input electrical power.

Novatron has made significant advances in the capabilities of the AUVS technology to kill microorganisms. The operating power required for the AUVS has been reduced by two orders of magnitude, resulting in small appliance-like power levels. For example, a 2000 cfm system providing 6 logs (99.9999%) kill of UV resistant Bacillus subtilis endospores (significantly more resistant than anthrax spores or smallpox virus) requires less than 1500 watts of operating power. This is approximately the power consumed by a household hair dryer.

Laboratory testing and independent third party government sponsored testing has been performed. A compact 3500 cfm system, the BioProtectorTM BP246i, has been developed for government, military, commercial and hospital applications and a larger system (60,000 cfm) was installed at the pentagon in Washington D.C. in September 2005.

In summary, the AUVS system provides a new means of effectively and efficiently sterilizing air and assuring the protection of buildings from biological contaminants. The technology is energy efficient and acquisition, operating costs are low.

UV CURING

Novatron has developed, tested technology to efficiently create very uniform, high intensity UV for curing applications. The technology uses novel UV flux density multiplication techniques to increase the illumination intensity and uniformity over a curing surface without increasing the input power or number of lamps required.

The AUVS technology offers many benefits and advantages for UV curing. One advantage is that the geometry of a UV lamp or source can be transformed to more appropriately match a surface area to be cured. For example, the emission from a cylindrical lamp can be used to provide uniform irradiance over a circular, square, rectangular or other two-dimensional area. Similarly, the emission from a short cylindrical lamp can be used to provide high intensity uniform irradiance over a longer rectangular area. A 6-inch long lamp could, for example, be used to uniformly illuminate a 12 or 18-inch long rectangular area. In addition, it is possible to provide uniform irradiance over complicated 3-dimensional shapes, with UV energy striking the object from all directions. AUVS curing systems can use microwave energized UV lamps or other UV sources such as arc lamps. Additionally, it is possible to modify the spectrum of the UV to remove portions of the spectrum that may be undesirable, such as IR wavelengths and optimize the spectrum reaching the UV curing surface. In summary, some of the advantages and benefits the AUVS technology brings to UV curing applications are:

Efficiently creates high uniformity, high irradiance UV distributions over arbitrary geometrical shapes.
Acts a "light distribution transformer" to transform a lamp geometry to a desired illumination pattern (short lamp can provide uniform illumination of larger circular, square, rectangular or other UV curing area).
Can provide uniform, high intensity irradiance over 3-dimensional objects without the necessity to move the source or the object.
Can use microwave energized or other UV sources, such as arc lamps.
Can be modify the spectrum emitted by the UV source to conveniently and easily remove unwanted wavelengths.

High Sensitivity Detector for Chemical and Biological Agents

Novatron is developing technology for rapid sensing of chemical and biological agents and toxic industrial chemicals (TICs). The technology under development is based on an innovative approach for infrared spectral identification of chemical compounds. It offers an opportunity to increase the detection sensitivity by an order of magnitude over that of available with current state-of-the-art detectors. Detectors based on this technology are projected to be compact, rugged and have rapid response time.