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purpleoctopuppy t1_jcmr0ik wrote

Reply to comment by TinyDemon000 in If UV radiation is used to disinfect and sterilise things then why isn't everything the sun touches (your skin, the sidewalk etc) sterile? by Critwhoris

UV Index of 14 is 350 mW/m², a UV steriliser bulb I found online is 28 μW/cm² which is 280 mW/m² ... huh, those are pretty comparable.

(The bulb is measured at 1m, so in practice it'll probably be 16× stronger or more, but still I wasn't expecting comparable orders of magnitude. Also note different UV wavelengths)

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fkenthrowaway t1_jcmubv6 wrote

Sterilizing bulb is UVC light and im pretty sure a much stronger UVC source than standing in sunlight.

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purpleoctopuppy t1_jcn4ra3 wrote

Yes definitely! That's why I mentioned different wavelength: sunlight is not an adequate replacement for a sterilising bulb.

I was just expecting it to be thousands of times stronger integrated across the UV spectrum that I was surprised, as I wasn't expecting to need to take that into account at the start!

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