New blood steriliser
•
uses microwave energy
One of the real scourges of the nineties is the
AIDS virus. No one who develops full blown
AIDS survives more than a few years so there is a
huge research effort in developing drugs for its
treatment. Now a Sydney engineer has hit upon
using microwave energy to sterilise AIDScontaminated blood - a development which may
become very significant in the next few years.
This new process for the sterilisation of AIDS contaminated blood is
the subject of a patent application
(Application PK 7302 - Australian
Patent Office - assigned to Jamiri
Holdings Pty Ltd). It relies for its effect on nuclear magnetic resonance.
Electromagnetic energy can be used
to selectively excite atoms, molecules
or cells with great precision. Nuclear
magnetic resonance (NMR) has been
used to study cancer cells for almost
20 years, specifically for the measurement of proton density.
The proposer of this new blood
treatment, Graham Rogers, has drawn
upon his expertise in the use of microwaves for heating and sterilisation,
to make it quite specific - namely, to
treat human blood. The process is
aimed specifically at viruses, namely
HIV, AIDS and Hepatitis A & B.
His patent application details the
theory of resonance and the concept
of resonant ionisation spectroscopy
using tuneable pulsed lasers.
Basic concept
The concept of his device is to selectively ionise or remove cells or a
virus from blood by the use of microwave energy. This is to be accomplished by passing the blood through
a spiral coil into an RF chamber where
it will be irradiated at a specific resonant frequency and power level. After being irradiated, the blood is removed from the chamber where it is
cooled rapidly to avoid any deterioration of the blood itself.
No other treatment of the blood
would be necessary although it might
have to be passed through the sterilisation process more than once to be
100% effective. Nor would there be
any degradation of the blood cells
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*While these articles are in an advanced state of preparation, their
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82
SILICON CHIP
the microwave chamber, the blood will
be rapidly cooled by passing it through
a vortex tube powered by compressed
air.
Prototype blood reactor
A prototype sterilisation unit was
brought to the premises of SILICON
CHIP magazine for a photographic session. It was not as described in the
patent application but many of the
principles were similar. Essentially,
the prototype is an industrial microwave oven with microprocessor control of power level, fluid temperatures and pumping rate.
Instead of using an air-driven vortex for cooling, :the prototype employed a Seebeck semiconductor cooling device. The unit was not demonstrated and even it had been, we had
no access to testing facilities to verify
the process.
Field tests
This prototype sterilisation unit looks much like a microwave oven with an
extra chamber below. The latter holds the Seebeck semiconductor cooling
device, a pump, cooling fans and air filters.
themselves or any effect on blood antibodies. The close control of the process is supposed to see to that.
The patent application goes on to
detail the construction of the microwave chamber, the pumping and cooling equipment and the source of
the microwave energy. The microwave
source is to be based on a conven-
WHERE DO YOU GET IT?
o~
(f.~
tional magnetron and a mains power
supply except that the power level
will be able to be set very precisely
and the microwave frequency set by a
tuneable waveguide.
The temperature of the blood will
be closely controlled at all times by a
microprocessor based monitoring system. After it has been removed from
At the time of writing, full scale
tests of the process had not been carried out and so it is not possible to
state whether the process is effective
or not. However, undertakings had
been obtained for tests to be carried
out in the first quarter of 1992 at
a major Sydney teaching hospital.
Graham Rogers also has offers to run
full scale tests in a number of countries. He expects to begin Australian
tests soon.
We hope that the process does prove
to be effective. If so, it could be of
major benefit in controlling AIDs and
other blood related diseases.
SC
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