Innovate-UK contract awarded to Sloan Water Technology Ltd for their ultrasonic devices

Sloan Water Technology Limited (SWT), Global-NAMRIP’s first spin-out, has received a contract from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, as part of the UK Government’s drive to beat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Innovate-UK are investing in the ultrasonic stream technology originally invented by Professor Timothy Leighton, Director and Inventor-in-Chief of Sloan Water Technology, and developed by SWT into a range of inventive devices that have the ability to clean surfaces without heating or additives. By passing ultrasound down a gentle stream of tap water, that stream is given the ability to remove the respiratory secretions in which the virus resides (droplets of fluids ejected from the human respiratory tract). Innovate-UK have invested in SWT technologies to remove the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19 from hands, PPE and touch surfaces (e.g. keypads), so breaking the chain of infection by these routes from person to person.

SWT’s streams are particularly useful in the early days of a pandemic, because:

• if routinely used, they will combat the infection before it grows into a pandemic and is identified as such;
• by removing the virus without heating or additives, the streams are effective against the virus when supply lines (of bleach, biocide, soap, detergent etc.) are interrupted (e.g. through panic-buying, illness amongst producers/packages/warehouses/delivery workers). They also allowing viral removal through routine cleaning when supplies of cleaning products are exhausted (e.g. on cruise ships) or yet to be fully stocked (e.g. in first setting up Nightingale hospitals).
• ongoing use of the streams in cleaning reduces all other infections (they are even effective at cleaning away difficult-to-remove items such as prions), reducing the burden placed on healthcare-systems by infections other than the primary pandemic (e.g. the influenza infections expected in the winter of 2020).