Jeff Kaufman's Writing

You Can Just Buy Far-UVC

2025-12-13 · 13:00 UTC ·2 min read

Brief

Far‑UVC lamps (≈222 nm) are now commercially available as a $500 Aerolamp unit, Jeff Kaufman reported on 2025-12-13; he used four units at a dance to quietly disinfect indoor air. The piece notes that 222‑nm light inactivates viruses and bacteria while being safe for humans and that off‑the‑shelf availability removes prior consultation/installation hurdles.

Source evidence

title: You Can Just Buy Far-UVC
contenttype: article
publication: Jeff Kaufman's Writing
published: 2025-12-13T13:00:00+00:00
sourceurl: https://www.jefftk.com/p/you-can-just-buy-far-uvc

word_count: 340

Far-UVC is something people have
talked about for years in a "that would be great, if you could buy it"
sort of way. Coming soon, once someone actually makes a good
product. But the future is now, and it costs $500. Many diseases spread through the air, which is inconvenient for us as
creatures that breathe air. You can go outside, where the air is too
dilute to spread things well, but it's cold out there, and sometimes
wet. You can run an air purifier, but cleaning lots of air without
lots of noise is still the world of DIY projects . Ideally you could just
shine some light, perhaps in the 222-nm
range , which would leave people alone but kill the viruses [1] and
bacteria. Yes, let's do that! Last year if you asked " if far-UV is so great, why isn't it
everywhere? " one of your answers would be: There are very few providers, and hardly any of them sell an
off-the-shelf product. You usually can't just buy a lamp to try it
out—you have to call the company, get a consultation, and often have
someone from the company come install the lamp. It's a lot of overhead
for an expensive product that most people have never heard of. This has changed! You can buy an Aerolamp for $500,
shipped. Proudly displayed at Thanksgiving: Here are five four silently cleaning a whole lot of air at a dance I help organize: At $500 this is out of (my) Christmas gift range, but I think we're now
at the point where dances, churches, offices, rationalist group
houses, schools, etc. should consider them. (I have no stake in Aerolamp and they're not paying me, I'm just very
excited about their product.) [1] Ok, yes, I know viruses "can't be killed" because they're "not
alive", but far-UVC causes them to become unable to infect and
replicate which is close enough to "killed" for me. Comment via: facebook , lesswrong , the EA Forum , mastodon , bluesky , substack