9th April 2020
Own Correspondent
The Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) in conjunction with the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) have designed Drone Sprayer to be used to disinfect the air of open public spaces in the time of COVID-19 Pandemic.
At this time of lockdown, critical open spaces in Botswana are where there will be unavoidable human activities such as hospitals, grocery stores, gasoline stations and quarantine facilities. The drone sprayer will help clean the air from the unseen corona virus in these areas.
The air disinfection by drone is intended to work in collaboration with manual disinfection by humans that targets ground surfaces. The drone will target airborne corona virus that is hard to kill from the ground.
The drone carries 1.5 liters of 0.5% sodium hypochlorite that can disinfection an air volume of around 3,000 cubic meters, that is, a land area of 600 meters squared at the height of 5 meters, or a land area of 300 sq meters at a height of 10 meters.
The total time needed to uniformly disinfect the air volume of 3,000 cubic meters is around 30 minutes. Disinfection process is performed by mixing tiny droplets of the disinfectant released from the drone sprayer with aerosol in the air that may contain the virus. Continuous disinfectant spray limits airborne pathogens.
The drone carries a maximum load of 1.5 kg with 750 ml of disinfectant at each side. Disinfectant solution is formulated by Environmental Remediation and Management Laboratory (ERM Lab) of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
