Shedding New Light on UV Radiation and Pulsed Light Processing

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum falling between 200 nanometers (nm) and 400 nm in wavelength. For comparison, visible light is between 400 nm and 700 nm, running from violet to red, hence the names for radiation at either end—ultraviolet (beyond violet) and infrared (beyond red). The optimal germicidal action of UV is around 254 nm, which happens to be where mercury vapor lamps emit.

UV is thought to kill by interacting with DNA in living cells’…