NRL develops sanitiser tunnel

GUWAHATI: Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) has developed a prototype for ‘auto sanitiser tunnel’ with the objective of properly sanitising its employees and contract workmen engaged in the refinery.
“Leveraging on innovation to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, NRL engineers and technical staff have developed a prototype for ‘auto sanitiser tunnel’ with the objective of ensuring proper sanitisation of its employees and contract workmen working in the refinery,” an official statement issued here said.
The design conceived by Nihar Prasad Sharma, deputy general manager, was implemented in-house by the instrumentation department at its workshop with assistance of other maintenance groups utilising mostly refurbished components sourced within the refinery.
The unit works on opto-electronic principle to automatically discharge a controlled mist of sanitising liquid as a person walks-in through the tunnel.
“Utilising compressed air that is readily available in the refinery, the sanitising liquid is atomised to generate a fine mist, avoiding requirement of heavy duty pump; thereby minimising the wastage of scarce liquid disinfectant as well as regulating over exposure to the liquid to achieve safety levels,” it said.
The frame of the unit has been made from waste cable trays, the canopy from aluminium while the opto-electronic components and controller module are repaired faulty spares. The spray nozzles have been taken from agriculture pesticide spraying hand pumps.
“The disinfectant liquid, sodium hypochlorite, of 0.4 per cent concentration has been sourced from NRL’s effluent treatment plant and appropriately diluted to about 40 times and the compressed dry air further produces fine mist to restrict the liquid exposure within safe minimum levels,” it said.