Spray coating in health environment

Burby, ML; Nasr, GG; Nourian, A; Stewart, JA

Abstract

The effective use of disinfectants on surfaces, therefore, within the health care environment constitutes an important factor in preventing Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs). For surface disinfection processes in hospitals the open bucket and closed bucket systems are commonly used, these systems involves the use of wipers to deliver the disinfectant agents to the target surface. Wipers (cotton rags, cellulose- based wipers) however, have proven to be inefficient in the delivery of disinfectant agents as they are incompatible with some disinfectant agents or have a high possibility of contaminating the disinfectant solution or other surfaces they come in contact with. A mobile fine spray unit, utilising a novel Spill-Return Atomiser (SRA) has been developed for the purpose of disinfection within healthcare environments. The developed system produces droplet sizes 15 m< D32 < 25 m for flow rates as low as 0.1 l/min with liquid supply pressure of up to 12MPa. This is achieved by providing an effective and efficient delivery system for specified disinfectant agents. Furthermore, the unit is able to spray uniformly on to any given surface, providing, mist-like coverage. Any streaking patterns, caused by excessively large droplets, left on the surface during or after spray application would jeopardize the efficiency of delivering the decontaminant. A coating performance test was carried out with the aim of determining the coating performance of the SRA on four different surfaces that are commonly found within the healthcare environment; they are steel, acrylic, glass and laminated wood. The SRA was used to spray water on these surfaces at different pressures, flow rates, spraying angles and spraying distances. Images of the surfaces were also taken after each application for further analysis. The effect of atomiser application distance and angle upon the impacted droplet size of droplets distributed on each of the three test surfaces was studied (laminated plywood, brushed steel and glass). A sweeping method of application was also utilised at all test distances in order to assess the comparative coating quantity performance of sweeping and fixed/stationary atomiser application positions. Streaking, as illustrated in the tests, is a function of, mainly, spray duration, distance, water supply pressure and material properties.

Citation

Burby, M., Nasr, G., Nourian, A., & Stewart, J. Spray coating in health environment. Presented at ILASS Americas 2012 - 24th annual conference on liquid atomization and spray systems, San Antonio, Texas, United States of America

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: ILASS Americas 2012 - 24th annual conference on liquid atomization and spray systems
• Conference Location: San Antonio, Texas, United States of America
• End Date: May 23, 2012
• Publication Date: May 23, 2012
• Deposit Date: Feb 9, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 9, 2021
• Publisher URL: http://www.ilass.org/2/conferencepapers/6.pdf
• Related Public URLs: http://www.ilass.org/2012/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference