BRITISH scientists have developed an air-purification technology that claims to offer protection against bird flu and the MRSA “superbug”, and which could prevent winter colds from spreading round stuffy offices, writes Paul Durman.

Alan Mole, the inventor, has created a system that simulates the production of fresh air, and which destroys airborne viruses and bugs. The purifier has been tested at the government laboratories at Porton Down, and was found to kill 99.9999% of a test virus in less than five minutes.

“It’s almost so good that nobody is going to believe it,” said Martin Wyatt, chief executive of the Buildings Research Establishment, a former government agency that has been involved with the development over the past 18 months.

He said the system was one of the most important developments in air quality engineering over the past 50 years.

“It has a very wide range of potential uses,” said Wyatt. “As fast as we thought of one big area, we came up with another one.”

The BRE and Mole, along with their commercialisation advisers, Inventa Partners, have formed a company called Tri-Air Developments, and have engaged the corporate-finance arm of Price Waterhouse Coopers to find a manufacturing partner.

Jason Slocock, an assistant director at PWC, said his firm had contacted the leading makers of air-conditioning equipment, including Samsung, LG, Sanyo and Daikin.

He said the manufacturers could be ready to move into full-scale production by the last quarter of this year. Tri-Air plans to charge a small royalty to the companies that license its product.

The purification system could be incorporated within air-conditioning equipment, or produced as a stand-alone machine. Although the protoype is about 50cm long and 30cm high, the BRE believes it could easily be miniaturised to produce a wearable version, such as a hospital face mask.

The partners in Tri-Air believe that global health threats such as bird flu and Sars could drive widespread adoption of the technology, making it standard in most buildings. “It’s very low cost,” said Wyatt.

Mole combined three existing decontamination technologies, hence the name Tri-Air. The system works by producing a constant supply of free radicals, powerful but short-lived oxidants that help cleanse the air.