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An Indianapolis company says it has found a way to eliminate the virus that causes COVID-19 from school buses. Lumin-Air says it can retrofit air filtration systems with ultraviolet technology to eliminate not only SARS-CoV-2, but influenza and other respiratory viruses as well. Co-owner Dan Fillenwarth says the patent pending process was created after discovering the need to clean the air of one of the most densely-populated areas in education.

Fillenwarth demonstrated how the system works in an interview on Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick.

“All we’re doing is we’re taking a simple solution that would’ve been used in HVAC. We just the return air grill with a high amount of UV-C,” said Fillenwarth. “I want to point out that the (UV-C light) stays in the enclosure. It doesn’t escape onto the occupants. And then that air, as it’s cleaned in this section…is distributed back through the supply air to where all the students would be sitting.”

Lumin-Air, which was founded just a few months ago, is partnering with Lebanon-based American Ultraviolet, which makes the UV-C bulbs for the technology. 

Fillenwarth says the technology has long-term use in school buses, as well as city and metro buses throughout the country. 

“We’ve had a lot of interest from various regional transportation associations,” said Fillenwarth. “We all want to get back to normal as quickly as we can, but there’s some things about ‘normal’ that we can, I think, move beyond and improve. For instance, we don’t have to have 7 million students miss 15 or more days of school like we did pre-COVID-19. We don’t have to go back to the huge amount of people that would die of the flu easier either.”

Lumin-Air is seeking approvals for the technology in multiple states, including Ohio and Florida, among others.

The company was spotlighted in our most recent edition of the Life Sciences INdiana e-newsletter. You can read the article from Special Projects Reporter Kylie Veleta by clicking here.

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