Intervention
Disinfection
Also: air disinfection, germicidal irradiation, UVGI, fumigation, surface disinfection
Inactivating micro-organisms in air or on surfaces rather than removing them. Indoors it is applied as ultraviolet light, as chemical fogging or as devices generating reactive species — and unlike filtration, it can create new pollutants while it works.
What it is
Disinfection differs from every other air-cleaning measure in this vocabulary by leaving the target in the room. A filter takes the organism out; a germicidal lamp leaves it where it was, no longer able to reproduce. For infection that is sufficient, and for allergy it is not, because the allergenic proteins of a dead spore are unchanged.
The methods differ in what else they do. Upper-room ultraviolet irradiation has decades of evidence behind it against airborne infection and does not alter the air chemically when the wavelength is chosen properly; shorter wavelengths generate ozone, which then reacts with whatever volatile compounds the room contains. Chemical disinfection loads the air with what was sprayed, which is why it belongs to unoccupied rooms.
Coridum records a claim here only where the study measured what reached the room air, not where it measured inactivation in a chamber or on a plate.
What the studies report
| Linked to | Effect | Population | Study design | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Formaldehyde (CH₂O) | difference 46.5 | — · test chamber | chamber tests of BT100, a gaseous chlorine-dioxide-releasing product, against aerosolised MS2 virus, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, formaldehyde and TVOC; co-authored by the manufacturer | F-0321 Shambhavi BT100, a three-in-one, multipurpose disinfecting, deodorizin… (2024) | machine |
| Total volatile organic compounds (TVOC) | difference 63.84 | — · test chamber | chamber tests of BT100, a gaseous chlorine-dioxide-releasing product, against aerosolised MS2 virus, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, formaldehyde and TVOC; co-authored by the manufacturer | F-0322 Shambhavi BT100, a three-in-one, multipurpose disinfecting, deodorizin… (2024) | machine |
Each row is one Finding — a sentence as printed in one study, recorded with its page in the Coridum Knowledge Base. Follow the Finding number for the exact wording and the citation. Checked says who verified the row: machine means every automatic check passed and the surrounding text was read; person means someone read the sentence in the document. Rows are re-checked by a person over time. The studies are curated in the Coridum Knowledge Base; the reading of them together is a Claim, shown separately.
Identifiers
- MeSH
- D004203
Cite this page
Coridum Research. Disinfection. Coridum Knowledge G-0179, 16 September 2026. https://coridum.com/k/G-0179/