As the Munich-based Frauenhofer Institute has released on its website, the institution has developed a new UV LED based disinfection system in cooperation with German LED manufacturer Purion.  The new UV LED are suitable to replace mercury light as UV light source for disinfection applications and is used to purify brewing water and clean the caps for bottled beer and soft drinks.

Thomas Westerhoff, scientist at Fraunhofer Institute and his team designed the UV LED module with a maximum wavelength of 265 nanometers to reach an optimal disinfection performance. As Westerhoff said, the team had to consider the numbers of LEDs used and how point sources with different wavelengths arranged in the module.

As the Frauenhofer Institute explained, after several testing procedures its researchers are now able to operate the UV LEDs directly in water without the need for a tube to encase them. This eliminates reflections to further increase the performance yield of the radiation sources. The new system was arranged for the industrial partner PURION and can disinfect the insides of beer caps during the production process before the bottles are filled with beer. As the Frauenhofer Institute pointed out, this ensures that no germs get into the bottles during the production process.
As a leading engineer of the institute furthermore pointed out the new UV LED is “… able to irradiate the inner surface of the caps with a UV power of four watts. Doing that with mercury-vapor lamps on such a small surface is almost impossible.”gm.