14 DAY TRIAL // In case you're having trouble figuring it out, the odd-looking glowing cylinder featured in the photos accompanying this article is a door handle. A door handle that can destroy about 99.8% of whatever germs make it onto it when people touch it, that is.
The handle, developed by two teenage boys in China, i.e. 17-year-old Sun Ming Wong and 18-year-old King Pong Li, owes its astounding bacteria-killing abilities to the fact that it is coated in a thin layer of titanium dioxide, which does a great job of making mincemeat of germs.
As for why it is glowing, this is because Sun Ming Wong and King Pong Li made sure to incorporate a UV light source in its design. They did so not to make the door handle all sparkly and pretty, but because titanium works best when blasted with UV rays.
The UV light source is hidden inside one of the Brackets enclosing the clear glass cylinder that forms the bulk of the door handle. When somebody grabs the cylinder to open a door, UV rays are fired, the titanium oxide is activated and bacteria transferred during contact are killed.
According to Oddity Central, the Chinese students showcased their new-generation titanium dioxide-coated door handle, which, by the way, only cost about $13 (roughly €11.5) to make, at this year's Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pennsylvania, US.
Should such door handles be mass-produced in the near future, they would especially come in handy in hospitals, schools and other public places where it's important that bacteria populations are kept on a tight leash to make sure they do not become a threat to public health.
