Staffers check equipment that uses electron beams to inactivate coronavirus in the laboratory Photo: courtesy of China General Nuclear Power Corporation

 
China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN), together with other scientific research units, announced on Monday that the project using electron beams to inactivate novel coronavirus on cold chain food packaging has passed a scientific review by an expert group, and that development of the first set of application equipment in China has been completed.

The results of the project could provide a better solution for China to cut off the transmission path of the novel coronavirus, CGN told the Global Times on Monday.

The expert group decided that the project responds quickly to the requirements of disinfection of imported cold chain food and verifies the effectiveness of the electron beam inactivation method. It also shows that China is at the forefront of developing this technology.

The experimental results of 11 batches and 190 samples by March 10 showed that the absorption dose of 5 to 10 kGy electron beams can completely kill the living coronavirus on a paper surface.

“The electron beam energy is low, and the penetration ability of paper products is only about 0.3 mm. It mainly disinfects the outer packaging of cold chain food, and will not affect the food and the environment of the equipment operation site,” said Zhang Zimin, director of the Electron accelerator research center at the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Zhang said that the equipment covers an area of no more than 40 square meters, and it can be directly deployed by customs, ports, warehouses and other places that need to disinfect cold chain food packaging.


Global Times