A new perspective of the chemistry and kinetics of inactivation of COVID -19 coronavirus aerosols

Hitchman, Michael L

In this paper we present a new approach to the mechanism of inactivation of enveloped virus aerosols. The analysis is in terms of oxidation of the lipid bilayer of the viral envelope through a free radical chain reaction. The rate kinetics of the process for various enveloped viruses have been compared and the indications are that the inactivations are closely related. Promoting virus inactivation with UV light is briefly reviewed and discussed as an extension of the chain reaction mechanism, which with physicochemical analyses give insights into the process and of reaction complexities. An outline of a practical method of achieving a 3-log10 level of deactivation in 1 min is described with purified air being returned to healthcare environments.