By Healthcare Facilities Today

A group of Gazan engineering students have designed an energy efficient ozone gas generator that reduces the amount of time needed to sterilize hospital rooms and surgical theaters, according to an article on the Haaretz website. 

The three students, and their mentor, engineer Mohammed Timraz, hope the device will be used to sterilize hospital rooms in Gaza.

Many hospitals around the world use large ozone generators to decontaminate operating rooms between surgeries, according to the article.  Rooms are usually cleaned and sealed before being filled with ozone gas which kills or neutralizes any remaining bacteria. Ozone can be used as a surface disinfectant and also sterilized air.

The generator was the brainchild of engineer Mohammed Timraz, who works in various local hospitals in the Gaza strip. With students from Gaza's University College of Applied Sciences, he created a device which activates oxygen gas and transforms it into ozone gas by using an electric charge.

Timraz said their generator is faster and more economic than traditional generators used for cleaning.

"Compared to the other devices used around the world that generate ozone gas and sterilize 40-50 square meter rooms requiring five to six days which is not practical, this device that we have created requires only three to four hours making it useable on a daily basis," Timraz said in the article.

Cardiologist Marwan Sadiq says the ozone generator will help improve the level of health care in Gaza.

"This invention will decrease the percentage of infections after surgery, especially major surgery, open-heart surgery and joint replacement surgery. Bone surgeries, in particular, require a high level of sterilization, so we are extremely supportive of engineer Mohammed, because we know that this will improve the level of health care here in Gaza," Sadiq said.

Read the article.