May 17
Tunnel of Hope
Tunnel of Hope

Necessity is the mother of all invention is an adage tested through the times. And just when India and the world are grappling with an unforeseen pandemic called the coronavirus, innovation, in all respects, is perhaps the only thing that can save the day!

Living up to the testing times, an L&T engineer has improvised a device that can go a long way in curbing the spread of coronavirus. The engineer, Mr Bhavin Kansara, attached to the transport infrastructure arm at Dholera in Gujarat, has made a sanitiser tunnel using items that are in common use in hospitals.

It is a 4x6x7 feet chamber akin to a metal detector doorframe or more aptly, the female passenger frisking rooms that we see at security check-ins at airports. The sanitiser tunnel developed by the L&T engineer is capable of disinfecting an entire human body in a matter of just 10 seconds.

“In developing it, I have used two body sensors, two operation theatre (OT) fogger machines, five-metre flexible PVC pipe, a 200-litre santiser tank filled with isopropanol alcohol, what is commonly known as sanitiser, and some supporting electrical controls,” Mr Kansara says.

The moment an individual enters the chamber, the entry-sensor automatically activates the fogger machines and they start spraying smaller particles of sanitiser along with high velocity air. In seconds the entire chamber gets filled with the mixture of air and sanitizer.

This, in turn, completely disinfects an individual from head to shoe in a matter of 10 seconds. The moment the individual steps out of the chamber, the exit-sensor automatically deactivates the fogger machines. Depending on the number of people walking through, it consumes 5 -7-litre sanitiser an hour.

Interestingly, it was because of his wife Krishna that Mr Kansara was motivated to improvise the device. “My wife is an administrative staff in Sir Takhtasinhji General Hospital at Bhavnagar in Gujarat. With the coronavirus pandemic worsening by the day, she asked me whether I can do something to protect the staff and the general patients from contracting the disease and thus was born this sanitiser tunnel,” he says.

Given that there’s a dearth of COVID protecting gears, this improvised and low-cost sanitiser tunnel can be particularly of use in establishments that see a large number of people. Installing it at the entry/exit points will protect an individual until he/she comes in direct contact with an infected person.

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