Student designs currency sanitising machine to prevent spread of COVID-19

The rapid global spread of coronavirus causing widespread panic among the common people who are particularly scared of transmissions from surfaces to humans, has led to most people being wary of using currency notes as they fear that notes may be contaminated even if people are following

Chamod Hansajith with his invention

coronavirus safety measures. This comes in the wake of recent studies that indicate that the virus, transmitted through droplets, could be passed on even from dried surfaces. , Finding a viable solution to overcome this situation, a student of the IT Faculty of Horizon Campus, Chamod Hansajith, has recently designed a triple active currency hand sanitising machine to sanitise currency notes. This machine which is sensitive to motion, starts automatically and has a mechanism that starts to spray the sanitiser liquid like vapour and hot air flow driven by the dryer where currency notes are sanitised by a UV light beam. The sanitising process is not harmful and does not damage the currency notes. 

Speaking of his invention, Chamod stated, “Money that changes hands is an active carrier of all kinds of bacteria and viruses including COVID-19 and many banks have been ordered today to withdraw potentially infected cash from circulation in order to curb the spread. These include those received from high-risk sites such as hospitals and markets. My aim was to come up with a solution where the public could use cash safely through a system that could decontaminate cash. Therefore, the machine I have designed can effectively sanitise the currencies through the use of ultraviolet rays without damaging the notes. 

“As UV has already been found to be an attractive safeguard against airborne transmission, one with a track record against pathogens that can be deployed to reduce the risk of infections, I felt that a machine using UV rays to kill the germs off the surface of currencies would be an ideal solution. I personally believe that UV light can prove to be a key strategy in removing germs from certain surfaces that cannot be otherwise done with normal sanitisers. I hope my invention will provide in being a useful solution for the use of currency amongst the people of Sri Lanka during these pandemic times.” 

With everyday interactions with money being inevitable, such as withdrawing cash from ATM machines and certain sectors of society in remote regions of the country not having access to digital payments, as well as dealing with currency becoming unavoidable especially in sectors like banking, innovations such as that designed by Chamod could pave the way towards making currency safer to handle during the times of the COVID pandemic.