Friction Tubes to Generate Nanobubble Ozone Water with an Increased Half-Life for Virucidal Activity

TL;DR

This paper introduces a friction tube method to produce stable, high-concentration nanobubble ozone water with an extended half-life, enhancing virucidal activity against viruses like H1N1 and COVID-19.

Contribution

It presents a novel system using friction tubes to generate large quantities of stable nanobubble ozone water with improved virucidal efficacy.

Findings

Nanobubble ozone water has an increased half-life.

The system can produce high-concentration ozone water efficiently.

Effective virucidal activity demonstrated against H1N1 and COVID-19.

Abstract

Nanobubbles and related technologies are expected to be highly utilized in water resource-based industries such as water purification, crops, horticulture, medicine, bio, and sterilization. Ozone, a chemical with high sterilizing power, is known as a natural substance that is reduced to oxygen and water after reacting with pollutants. Ozone water, which is generated by dissolving ozone in water, has been used in various industrial sectors such as medical care, food, and environment. Due to the unstable molecular state of ozone, however, it is difficult to produce, use, and supply ozone at industrial sites in a stable manner. This study proposed a method for constructing a system that can generate high-concentration ozone water in large quantities using low power in real time and maintaining the concentration of the generated ozone water over the long term. Friction tubes (called 'nanotube') played a key role to generate nanobubble ozone water with an increased half-life for virus killing activity. In addition, the safety of ozone water during its spray into the air was explained, and virucidal activity test cases for the influenza A (H1N1/A/PR8) and COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) virus using high-concentration ozone water as well as its technical efficacy were described.