 This infecting the air in our schools. This is very important schools are important air is important Then this infecting is important too and for this discussion. We have a Dwayne Ashimini and he is an expert in such things at energy industries, which was originally Created in the 90s by Darren Kimura who is a friend of this show. I don't know where he is right now But we we know we know Darren well and any any friend of Darren is a friend of ours Wayne welcome to the show. Thanks Jay. I appreciate the time So we want to talk about your technology for a minute and let me let me restate some of what I understand about it So you you have you have air in a given classroom or room where people are you know close together and and the air circulates around them and picks up Bacteria it picks up virus picks up mold And the the way the air circulates often enough is it goes goes higher goes in top of the room And then it comes back down again. It comes back down then you get an infection and That's secondary that secondary infection is really what what creates the spreader So we have to hit it when it's up high And hopefully we have enough depth in the room enough height in the room So that we can catch it when it's up there now early on in COVID. I recall that the hospitals were We're buying these UV light things and they would they would put it in a hospital room and let it and let it flash around Circular motion okay to kill everything in the room Nobody could be in the room when it was there because it has a deleterious effect on people Okay, and and you have got a much more sophisticated arrangement right now where you can go into a school And you can you can kill the mold the bacteria Or or the virus a pie in the classroom Even while people are there and that's a tremendous advantage otherwise, you know, it's not nearly as useful and I have I have a trick question for you And we'll start out with my trick question, you know, we used to joke around about thermos bottles and My partner and the firm always used to ask me How does it know the difference? How does the thermos bottle know the difference? How does it know the difference between mold? bacteria and virus now that's high-tech So my first question to you is how does it know the difference actually, you know with UVC light It's it reacts or deactivates all of those so it doesn't really matter You can have modes mildews, you know, you can have bacteria as a virus is and What is really interesting is just that the extent of energy and the amount of time of exposure required Viruses tend to be much more fragile. So exposure energies and exposure times are less Whereas to opposites out of scroll modes and mildews tend to be much more resistant And so exposure times and energy levels to deactivate those takes a little bit longer So the great part is we don't really have to decide it just kind of does it Deactivation, what does that mean? You know in terms for example, well of any of those things a bacterium mold of virus How do you deactivate an antigen like that? Well, it actually affects the DNA within the virus or the bacteria or the spool and it stops it from being able to Replicate or duplicate. So that's what it does. It pretty much like makes it sterile to some degree Okay, so it can't replicate I suppose It can't attack human beings Yeah, so, you know, if it does get, you know, if we do breathe it in, you know, it's in the act and it's Inactivated I guess that's the word I guess Yeah, so what about the hospitals, you know, I remember this has got three years ago seems in an age ago actually the hospitals were doing this and you know, everybody was you know considering this a Promising technology is it still being done in hospitals? Yeah, aside from the schools You're gonna talk about today is being done, you know in other rooms where people gather Yeah, actually, you know, we've been doing UVC lighting now for probably about 15 20 years I don't if you remember but there was a big scare about the outbreak of tuberculosis and drug resistant tuberculosis So at that time a lot of the nursing homes the senior care Facilities and the hospital starting putting UVC lights in their air handling units, you know And they're large units like and that was to be activate or actually would serve couple purposes It would clean up the the coils that coils inside the air conditioning units And then if any of the bacterial viruses attached on to the coils, it would deactivate them at that level So yes, you are correct, but it actually has been around for a lot longer than that You know, we there was on the conversation in Hawaii public radio a couple hours ago there was Lay why do it used to be a city council member and he's been a lifelong victim of Polio and and it was newsworthy because you know polio is coming back There are cases of wild polio and I guess domestic a mess. I don't know what the difference is polio Emerging around the world now and it's very very shocking the salt vaccine, which was all the rage when I was a kid You know, apparently you didn't stop it all together and it's it's back and it's a virus. It's a virus and They why do was down there talking about it. It was really like deja vu all over again You know, just when he thought it was safe to go outside now polio a virus query Whether the deactivation process the technology you're talking about will kill things other than coven like polio Yeah, I mean any kind of virus it will react with any type of virus, but keep in mind that this is Virus that can become part of guys air in the air and then can rise up The remember early on in the conversation talked about them wheeling in this uvc device into a room in the light flash And everybody had to leave You know, those are more specifically for surface type situations And and the great part about that is the uvc light does work in those applications But as soon as you turn that device off if someone enters the room with you know with cove it or whatever else The effects of that device are gone because the uvc light is already turned off So that's why early on in the process, you know We were working with plan led to come up with a device that can be on all the time because that's the key Because uvc works very well against viruses and all these other things But it has to be on and it has to be exposed to those So that's why the upper room this infection is, you know, so it's not like a major advance It's a major advance from you know the room the one that comes into the room and spins around But but question, you know, you were talking before the show about ultraviolet a b and c Can you distinguish what those are for us? What's the difference? Definitely. Definitely. So, um, there are Ultraviolet light is invisible. We cannot see it. We cannot touch it smell it but there are different bands frequency bands and You uvca as you can see on the screen now is I don't know if you've seen on late night tv They have the ones where you have the glue you put the glue down and you expose it to this blue light That's uv a it's a curing material. It does those kinds of things uvb is what they use in sun tanning solutions It's when you go out in the sun And mold along and you get sunburn So uvb causes sunburn it causes those types of irritations it tends to go deeper into the skin Is it carcinogenic? uvb can be right that that's a leading cause of melanoma and those kinds of things and that's why there's some significant concern But uvb Can penetrate deeper into the skin layer be a dermis then in uvc uvc is in the frequency band I think between 130 and 180 uh somewhere in there please don't quote me on that one But it isn't a different frequency band and it is used to disinfect So when you watch on qvc, you see the little disinfecting machines to disinfect your phones You've probably seen it. I've seen it on you know different fans and different things of that sort that use uvc Because uvc light has been proven to disinfect viruses as we talked about But there's a couple critical parts to it that we have to understand As far as safety and as far as energy output Well, one question comes to mind is if you're going to do this at the top of a room Which I think is really a smart idea A you've got to have a you got to have the ability to beam the light Yes, because if you if you beam it down on people, you know the people that are in that room You're you know, you're you're shooting yourself in the foot And you may be you know doing something, you know damaging to them And the other part of my question is was some rooms Some rooms are not very high Some rooms have low ceilings So, you know, how how can you make that beam narrow enough? So that it's in a in a room that may not be that high and so that it doesn't you know fall on people So that's why the upper room side comes into play. So the devices that we work with Um, what it does is it gets mounted at about seven feet Um, that means that that means that if you're more than seven feet tall, you should probably stoop down It just means if you're over seven feet, you should let us know before we install it We're not that problem personally You and I both But um, the idea is uh, the bottom of the unit is about seven feet and they have Uh, designed louvers on the front of the uvq device that then travels light Not horizontally but in a vertical position upward And what happens is that the energy strengths closest to the unit are strongest obviously because that's the closest So when a virus passes through that band, it's a narrower band It gets disinfected but as it gets further away from the unit You want a wider band so the exposure time is longer And when you talk about the height limitations, but that basically means That we need a certain height ceiling. So usually the minimum that we will do is eight feet Um, because it's not just the the the band becomes to the kill zone. They call it it becomes too narrow But it's also the fact that there's reflectance off of the ceiling So, you know, you talk about the safety aspects of it and that's kind of that's a critical part to it Because it's great if we kill the viruses, but if we do harm to the people below What's the use right? I mean it's still an unoccupiable space So we do have to make sure that The reflectance off ceilings Off light fixtures off banners off different things like that come into play Well, how do you do that? How do you make sure that it's not bouncing off the ceiling? You know down down toward the people So when we were working with the manufacturer That was one of the critical questions critical questions because Nyasha and Osha do have standards as far as exposure And these exposure limitations have been around since you know, I mean back in I don't know 20 years ago when I started installing them And so they do set limits. I believe it's 0.7 micro Watts per centimeter square is a designation and There are what they call like dosimeter machines or meters that can measure the energy output So part of every installation and you know when I was talking to a lot of experts UVC light is great But there's two questions that always come up. Is it really doing what it's supposed to be doing and is it safe? So guidelines have been put in place to make sure that it answers those two questions So when we do an install Um included in our price is a commissioning of device which basically means We go and we take with this meter and we check at three feet off the unit Are we getting certain energy strings? And what was the standard was set was about 210? Micro watts per centimeter squared off the front and that shows that you can you're starting to deactivate viruses also, it is 0.7 Micro watts per centimeter squared at five feet nine because I guess it was determined that the average height of a person is about five feet nine inches So, you know, if we cover that level so as part of our install It is mandatory It is mandatory That we do these measurements And then if there are desks or different things in the room will take readings at different areas Just to confirm that we're not exceeding that point start bouncing around. Yeah The other I have two other things that that you know, one is that this is a question of of physics That is does I love this question, but I don't know if anybody knows the answer Does light fall Is einstein could help us Does light does light fall does gravity affect light if I shoot a beam of light, you know Uh out for an infinite distance is gravity going to drive that beam down? Uh, you know, you're above my pay grade and my university physics Uh, it goes a little bit beyond that but but you know the the unit itself the disinfecting zone that we're talking about is about 20 24 feet off the face and from centerline about 15 feet in each direction But keep one thing in mind We're not trying to cover every square footage overhead Because the idea is to create these kill zones that get into the airflow So as long as the areas of primary occupancy are covered That's the main thing and as long as there's air movement because it does require Some form of some form of air movement, whether it be ceiling fans or air conditioning systems Those kinds of things To help circulate the air and then dust get it exposed to these kill zones So when you when you install then you may need to install something that will control the airfoil like fans Um air conditioning, what have you something that will move the air around and move it around in a way that that Comports with this technology. Am I right? Yes, and the lucky thing is Majority of the classrooms. Well, I haven't come across from yet. That doesn't either has air conditioning or ceiling fans You know, it's really common, you know, and then the hospitals things of that restaurants all those So most of the occupied spaces in hawaii have some form of air movement Yeah Uh, it wasn't that david e gay going to put ceiling fans in every classroom. I don't remember or air conditioning air conditioning So the air conditioning, how you know, how does that affect this? You have to have the air conditioning running a certain way And running at a certain height. Am I right? Yes. Yes, that does matter But you know most times air conditioning is set up in that pattern So when we look at it now, that's why it was kind of critical, you know, we just finished waimaru elementary And the first set of classrooms that he wanted to hit Was the special needs classes. Um, I don't know if i'm saying it right But um politically correct, but the reasoning why was the deal we and the it's not just the deal. It's the cdc It's the epa That came out with designations to reduce the spread of coveted in enclosed spaces by increasing the air changes um, and what they do is you open the windows Um in the classrooms and then so that means you cannot use the air conditioning so what You know, um principal iwamoto was seen was that it becomes more distracting for the student For this warmer one plus the windows are open They can hear the noises and then now they have these great air conditioning systems in the schools and they can't use them So what he wanted to do in those classrooms initially as the first phase Was be able to create the equivalent air changes to meet the requirements You know of the epa and the doe And yet still close the windows closer doors and use the air conditioning Because you know there is the benefit. I mean it's directly been proven right that if you can Pull down the spaces or let make it less humid the kids are more attentive You know, they're less sleepy just a variety of different things to help that process. Absolutely I know that I know that for every every everybody really if you know, if it's too hot you can't think um The other thing that comes to mind is let's let's assume you have a bigger room And you know a room for example where there is really no problem about the height of the room However, it's big And it's you know, it's it's not a classroom size of what 2030 by 2030 Now it's really really big. It's hundreds by hundreds How do you how do you handle that? How is the installation different? When you have a big room say a that's gymnasium and auditorium, you know a bigger room Yeah, so they are being done and yes, there are limitations. You know, I won't I won't Come into you that this is the the annual be all for everything But so in some of the gyms, you know, they're put along the edges They're put a lot above the stadiums, you know, the seating areas Along the common areas those kinds of things and as I said, it reaches out about 24 feet So yes, it doesn't reach out to the center areas, but at least it does provide some protection We are doing some libraries. We just finished the library at pool. Holly elementary You know, we put in six six units inside of that library And then you just kind of alternate and you try and create best coverages and you look for The areas where there are airflow and occupancy and then you try and cover those areas as best possible So you guys are always, you know, energy industry has always been very creative looking for You know, the next technology and all that. I remember that and it's impressive And so this is, you know, to me, especially given the fact that coven has Come to visit with us for a long time You know, it's this kind of technology is important But query. Are you the only guy in the block? Is there anybody else trying this technology here in Hawaii? I don't know about here in Hawaii, but there are other companies that make, you know, the the UV units UVC units for upper room and, you know, the the things that I've talked to with the experts, you know, because I was able to talk to some folks at Harvard And I was able to talk to the environmental specialists for the Department of Education here And one of the critical things that always is said is UVC lights. Yes, good. It does work. It can be But You must have the proper energy strength and then also design and safety So so, you know, when we we talk about situations We we won't sell these if you just want to buy them We want to look at the design the spot locations. Whereas it is, you know, are we going to be in the airflow? Are we above occupied spaces and then also is it safe? Because one of the very worst things that I've learned doing lighting over the past 28 years is You know, you can have one complaint and everybody else is positive But it's that one complaint that's going to be heard and that's the very first thing that's going to kill your project Yeah, sure. People get scared of everything now. Yes. I mean, so what could happen? I mean, what in you know in the science of it? What could happen with UVC? that you know would be a You know a legitimate complaint. Yeah, so So I have some first hand knowledge of this. Um I actually was working on some systems for commandment schools on the on the Cal campus and they have UV lights inside their their air handling units and I was young and somewhat stupid and lazy and I said, you know what this UVC light? That's nothing. I can work in the air handling unit get my work done and you know Don't worry about it. But after about four hours of working in the unit I began to notice that my eyes began to get I mean, it feels like like sand or conjunctivitis I don't know if you've ever felt that where it's a little gritty and then you know on my neck and my arms It was little red more red and you know a little bit more sensitive to touch like almost like a sunburn But not quite like a sunburn So I ended up locking up leaving and then That night I went to sleep And and the next day I was you know fine I went back to work again and this time got smart and turned off the uvc I don't know the exact technical terms, but that's my understanding is that It is most likely to affect the eyes and then also the upper dermis Is it true when that you used to be blonde? Joke No, but yeah so So yes, it is something that people will notice if they are exposed and and that's the dangerous part about this you You know, yes, the nyosh has some pretty Good standards and they talk about leaving the space if exposed those kinds of things and then that's the recovery And and you know unless it's very extreme. My understanding is permanent damage does not occur Uh, but still, you know, it's an irritant, right? Yeah, one other thing I wanted to cover with you and and that is this, you know, you said, uh, well, we we need to see the whole Configuration, you know before we install anything. We got to take a look But if you really want to know that this is working You have to look at the the comprehensive the you know that the hallways Um, the bathrooms. I don't know what else, you know, all the rooms all the spaces in a given school To you know to cover it because you can have crowded gatherings anywhere And if this is um, you know, going to be your method of dealing with with covet or anything else Um, you have to cover all the territory. Um, do you do that? Does it work? You you do wind up putting this in every space in the hallways of bathrooms, uh, you know, the offices the administration rooms and so forth To some degree. No, we haven't seen it to the point of hallways and bathrooms and things of that sort But, you know, we are seeing, you know, cafeterias, um, you know for why malo and poohale. We put it in the admin office You know, we put it in work rooms teacher work rooms. Um, you know the classrooms, obviously You know and and we talked about the libraries and and we're looking at different things and situations. Um, so Yes, it'd be great if someone did but, you know, we understand there is cost Right. So if you want to focus you focus on the areas that people spend the most time and the most, you know, most congested Um, they really like, you know, so when we did punoho, we did some of their, um, music rooms Because that's where people are singing and you know And doing those kinds of things and and what they found out is that's why churches initially were big spreader groups Because that's where people sing and they yell and they, you know, do this kind of thing And that causes a lot of exhalation which causes a lot of the potential virus So why why not go into the air handler the way you you know, you went in that time and you're you know, your anecdotes that you told Um, why not just control it through the air handler system of the of the building? Um, that way you cover all the air, right? Yes, you should do that. But keep one thing in mind is that the airflow through the air handling unit Doesn't take a hundred percent of the air and what has been found by I think the EPA and the cdc Is that it's the virus that folds up into the air and then circulates and cools down It comes back down before it gets into the air handling unit system that is causing the spread Uh, so yes, don't get me wrong UVC lighting in the air handling unit is a great great thing And should be done But what they're finding out is the spread of kovid is occurring in the classroom and not By the circulation of air Okay, well, I just uh, we have a few minutes left and um, I know that you have your favorite 1500 slides you want to show us So let me frame my next question this way, you know the important thing Is proof of concept when I say proof of concept, I mean that if you take a given school This is a hard question. Take a given school and you have x cases of kovid or or some bacteriological problem Or some kind of mold problem or or not god forbid polio Whatever it is you have x cases On day one you install this, you know, and on what six months later you you take another snapshot You're going to have a fraction of that right something And you know, and I I know you have slides that deal with this So can you take a few minutes Wayne and and give us proof of concept? As far as you know, the technology is concerned the science is concerned You know by virtue of all these these slides take the first 800 of them, okay Well, if we can go to the first slide, which is the one that talks about the history of the use of UVC light You know If you can see actually UVC light, is it new to kovid? You know in the 1940s it was used to combat measles In fact, I had a picture of a operating room for duke university back in the 40s And they were trying to figure out a way that they could do operations on measles patients without it spreading to the doctors So what they ended up doing is flooding the whole operating room with uvc And they made the doctors wear, you know gloves and long sleeves and masks and different things But but you talk about proof of concept So, you know from the 1940s through this 50s 60s up to present day UVC light has been used to counteract viruses like the asian flu like the common cold Well, I guess the common cold is not a virus, but um, you know It could very well be and then you know, we used to tuberculosis was an example So one of the things is this is not something that we just came up with two years ago It has been proven it's been tested and it's been shows that it does work on viruses for the past I don't know. What is that 80 years? So one thing, you know, like I said, it's not new technology It's just the application trying to figure out how to get it to be more useful Secondly the testing after the you know after it is installed is critical Um Most of the groups asher is now coming out with requirements and things like that That show the energy levels at certain distances that must occur for to deactivate the viruses So you must have the testing uh to prove that you are getting these these energy levels at certain distances away from the device To make sure that it's working now It's been very hard to do a test case where you put COVID in a room and you shine the light on it and you see how long it takes to deactivate and how much is left because Uh, the the CDC doesn't like to give COVID out. Uh, I I think it's kind of uh, no no Some of the people in Wuhan laboratory like to give it out. Yeah, there you go but um So so, you know, I mean, but they they it's been proven and it does show and there are requirements and as long as you can do these post readings One you can on the the token side of that and nothing scientific But we've been talking with some of the schools that we've installed And you know, we're trace tracing the rooms that have been installed and the ones that don't and we're kind of going through that and very early on uh, why malo came to us, uh, you know elementary a couple days ago and said They've had 18 reported cases of COVID 14 of the 18 were in rooms without Without the uvq units and the next thing though is we want to see how many other kids in those classrooms have gotten because Schools are great and you protect the kids while they're in school But when they go home when they go to dinner when they go elsewhere, you know, they may get it there But what the idea is to try and protect the teachers trying to protect the students other students and the parents from creating these spreader groups in the schools That's interesting. I don't know the answer kids in Hawaii schools wearing masks now And what's the interaction? Well, see the thing is, um, they reduce the mass mandate now Yeah, it's it's optional And that's what's scary, you know, because when we do these presentations for the teachers Uh, and those kind of things, you know, it's it's kind of scary for them, right? Because they don't know where these kids were. I mean, they come to them for, you know, six to eight hours a day You know, I mean, they don't know if they were in masks outside of class or they are how diligent are their Are their families or what are their experiences? Are they they're running into so It's had great reception from the teachers that there's some form Uh protection and keep in mind. This is not the end. I mean, we're not saying that this uv upper room This infecting unit is going to solve all the viruses. We're seeing it's just another layer of approach It's masks. It's vaccines. You know, it's wiping down tables It's social distancing, but it's another layer that we know is effective and can help reduce a significant That's science works that way layering multiple multiple possibilities each one, you know having having an effect on the on the outcome So one other thing you you mentioned the name of the company The name of the company's plan led. They're based out of seattle out of gig harbour in seattle. Tell us about them Yeah, so We've known them now. We've been working with them now for about 20 years because we did a series of Boeing Facilities up in seattle with them And they've always been at the very forefront They they what was big for them was they were getting into Classroom lighting and how it affects learning And relaxation and those kinds of things and how you can change the color temperatures and stuff So they've always been pretty forward in that and then when COVID hit You know the the founder was looking for something because actually was really interesting his kids Caught COVID early on in the process. So he was really trying to figure out What can we do to reduce the potential? Um, and and so UVC light had always come up, but then it was always How do we use it and make it active? All the time not just when we turn the light on and roll it into the room And so that's where the concept so he's been doing lighting fixtures for I don't know 20 plus years and so He's kind of a little inventor and he came up with the concept about how do we do this? And so, you know, I've been working with them. I went through a lot of different things iterations on this. So It's great that he finally came up with a product that is solid. I mean, it's really solid aluminum And it's got a lot of safety devices in there. So There's actually a motion sensor because you know one of the big things were hey, the teacher was like Hey, how do I turn this on turn it off? And we're like, no just plug it in We plug it in we turn it on leave it alone. It has a motion sensor that automatically turns it off after an hour And then so if there's motion in the room it automatically comes back on We put safety screws in there because we know students like to tamper with things So that it makes it harder for them to open because if you open the cover Exposes everybody to the uvc light And then the next thing is there is a dead switch if you open the cover The light automatically goes off. So a lot of thought was put in it to for the classroom environment to make sure You know, we we student proof it to some degree, you know in that regard Is there any reason why you wouldn't leave it on all the time? Well, one is energy Of course energy industries, of course You know, it only takes about 42 walks which is equivalent to like, you know, a two by four fixture So it's it's real small in that regard but two once you've Disappear it or you cling the air in the space There's no real need for it at that point So, you know having it turn off after an hour, it's had enough time to expose any potential viruses in the space Uh it within that hour and then it shuts off. So, you know, it's kind of a win-win, right? One you don't use as much energy and then two Nobody has to touch it and then it activates whenever there is a need for it in the room. Yeah, that's very clever That's good. Um, so we're you know about it out of time Dwayne But I want to offer you the opportunity to leave a message Leave a message to the parents the students the kids Whoever is interested in, you know, having this additional layer Of protection in the schools and maybe in other institutional settings as well Uh, what would be your message to them about the future of this technology? You know, the thing is I think we're all beginning to recognize that COVID or some form of virus I mean now you're getting into monkeypox and whatever you talked about polio Um, it is here. It's with us And you know, we need to figure out ways to return to some form of normalcy You know masks or vaccines. I mean vaccines are something that's going to be around it's been around forever Now it's going to be this But if we can figure out additional technologies and things that we can apply Like upper room disinfection through the uvc lighting It'll help us return to that normalcy Remove some of the fear get people get students back in the classrooms get teachers more comfortable working in those environments You know, it's that kind of thing that we see As this is the potential to to have that and and that's why we've been pushing really hard You know to try and get into the classrooms first But it applies and we were talking to the state about some of their offices now that they're starting to let people back into You know, um back into the offices Those areas would be prime areas because you've got people coming in and coming out and we don't know What the conditions are so you know what we're saying is it's a layered approach I'm by no means saying that this is the cure-all for everything But we need to do things that do not affect our our lifestyles But yet provide another layer of protection Yeah, don't forget about all those offices downtown where people haven't really made up their minds about whether they want to work in the Officer at home. It's still an open question you know, I met with the university of washington and their real estate group and They don't get paid rent if people aren't in the offices, you know, I mean it's harder to collect So he was looking at this device purely from the point of view of providing confidence to people to come back to the office Sure confidence It's very important that you know side effect of all of this is confidence to feel like like there's you know action being taken Well, thank you. Dwayne Dwayne Nushimini of energy industries and Really appreciate this discussion. I hope it goes well for you and regards to Darren Kimura by the way And also one last point is that, you know, we can't put all your slides on but we'll put some of them on On top of this video. So, you know that the viewers will be able to see Some of what you're talking about through those slides. Thank you so much, Dwayne. Thank you. Thanks jay. Much appreciated. Thanks, Eric Aloha Thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo You can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think tech hawaii dot com Mahalo