Sterilization process is very important and widely use in many areas whether in industries, hospital, food processing and etc. Sterilization that we are going to talk about actually – the process of making object free from livebacteria or other microorganism. Yes, there are several other meanings forsterilization that we are not going to focus on it.
Sterilization can be carrying out by many procedures and we are going to concentrate on the utilization of UV light. This procedure is simpler, clean, and cheaper and lately we can carry it in our home with many devices. There are many purposes for this process include,air cleaning, water treatment, equipment sterilization, and household sterilization.
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How UV Light Caused Damage to Cell's DNA. (Image Courtesy of NASA)
As we understand that sun also producing UV light, but further understanding about this light are needed to know the real characteristic of UV. There are 3 classes of UV light in the UV light spectrum. The kinds that we used to kill germs are slightly different than the UV that we block by applying out sunblock. There are few factors need to consider before we can use UV sterilization effectively such as concentration (measure in Watt), type of UV light, and time of exposure.
Spectrum of UV Light
The spectrum of light is divided by its wave’s length. There are many groups of light from visible lights to invisible lights. To make it short we are going to talk about three main classes of UV light;
1) UVA: also known as long wave, or back light with wavelength 400nm-315nm
2) UVB: or medium wave with wavelength 315nm-280nm
3) UVC: also known as short wave, or germicidal with the wavelength 280nm-100nm
As we can see only UVC is use for sterilization process and widely used insanitization equipment these days. In nature most of UVB and UVC from sunlight are blocks by earth’s ozone layer and leave only UVA penetrate to earth’s surface.
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How UV kills Germs and Microbes
There are many germs and microbes. To kill these pathogens effectively will depend on their types and physicality. Since UV will attack on cell’s DNA it is easier to kill the unicellular such as bacteria than multicellular such as mites. Anyway UV also attacks on any types of living cell. So in can harm on human too.
To understand more on how UV lights cause damage to cell’s DNA we need to know the structure of cell (let make this in some other articles). The light initiates a reaction between two molecules of thymine, one of the bases that make up DNA. UV light at this wavelength (shortwave UV or UVC) causes adjacent thyminemolecules on DNA to dimerize. The resulting thymine dimer is very stable. If enough of these defects accumulate on a microorganism's DNA its replication is inhibited, thereby rendering it harmless.
The longer the exposures to UVC light, the more thymine dimers are formed in the DNA. If cellular processes are disrupted because of DNA damage, the cell cannot carry out its normal functions. If the damage is extensive and widespread, the cell will die.
How to Keep Us Away From Germs with UV
With this understanding so we can decide on how to use the right method ofsanitizing with UV products. Take count for the enough power and duration of exposure to the UV light. Please keep away from exposure to the UV as it can cause harm to any living cell. It is good to understand how useful UV sanitizer is as this procedure can be the best way to eliminates pathogen from our family.
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