UVC LEDs can be used for the disinfection of water, air and surfaces and replace today’s mercury-based lamps that are toxic and unsustainable. Water purification is the largest market segment, and more than half the world does not have access to clean and safe water. UVC LEDs are a viable and sustainable solution. However, since UVC LEDs emerged several years ago, they have been manufactured in much the same way as previous generations of LEDs for visible light, not optimized for the high applications requirements for UVC disinfection which has a real human impact if not done properly. The demand and need for reliable and safe UVC disinfection equipment has increased by nearly 1,000% during the COVID-19 pandemic. As countries prepare for a future pandemic, safety regulations for robust disinfection solutions, the growth in demand in many commercial sectors such as hospitals, offices, hotels and restaurants for surface disinfection and air treatment purposes, expansion in the UVC disinfection equipment market is forecast to continue at a remarkable growth rate of 19% to 2027.
The goal of CrayoNano SteriLED project is to develop UVC LEDs based on new nanomaterials with improved performance and low cost, outperforming traditional thin film based UVC LEDs. Our UVC LED arrives at a crucial time to feed this growth with an efficient UVC LED technology, which will allow OEMs to move away from traditional mercury lamps and towards sustainability. Our breakthrough UVC LED technology will provide: a) High wall plug efficiency of 12%, which is in the range of mercury lamps and 60-91% higher efficiency than current market-available UVC LEDs. b) Longest lifetime at 20,000 hours, which is equivalent to that of some industrial mercury lamps. c) High optical power of 250mW (at 500 mA) resulting in by far the highest intensity on the UVC LED market. d) Low cost at €50/W, which is up to significantly cheaper than existing UVC LEDs.
We have had significant technical progress in our technology development on many aspects and implemented a packaged product (vehicle) to validate and test packaging and production processes, as well as successfully gaining key customers acceptance and confirmation of market requirements with our test vehicle device – 100mW, 5% wall plug efficiency, and >10,000 hours lifetime.
The growing demand from customers shows strong commercial traction and interest in integrating UVC LEDs, and further supports the need and potential of CrayoNano’s nanomaterials and nanotechnology-based approach to develop an outperforming, reliable and extremely powerful UV-C LED device. Our technology and planned roadmap of performance and price scaling, will continue to be disruptive and game changing, enabling the market towards mass market adoption and opening access to industrial applications where large volume capacities in the millions of cubic meters and liters of air and water need to be treated, disinfect large public spaces and surfaces in transportation, and enable new applications to meet the market’s full potential.
