Solar-powered hand sanitisation unit

A start-up company that has repurposed upcycled solar cells to generate ultraviolet light to disinfect people’s hands has won €20 000 in a hackathon designed to share and rapidly develop ideas to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

The disinfection station uses light at wavelengths demonstrated to kill germs but to be safe for skin and eye contact. It was presented by SunCrafter, a German start-up business that uses modules decommissioned by industrial solar farms to provide power to remote communities.

Lisa Wendzich, founder and chief executive, said that the company – which is based on the Siemens innovation campus in Berlin – was now working with partners to identify how to manufacture significant numbers of the units in the coming weeks and months.