POULTNEY – A new focus on disinfection has led to a bump in business for a Vermont company that makes ultraviolet lights that kill germs and viruses, and could be used to sterilize the masks used by health professionals.
First Light Technologies has been producing the lights, known in the industry as lamps, since owner Ken Ell started the company in 1994. First Light’s products go into equipment used for water and air purification and a range of other applications.
Ell said First Light’s quartz lamps have already been in high demand for years by hospitals and other institutions seeking a way to sanitize their buildings and equipment. Ultraviolet lights have been used for many years to sterilize the air in building ducts. They’re also used in the robotic devices that clean and sterilize operating rooms.
With Covid-19 rapidly spreading in the U.S. and elsewhere, Ell has come under increasing pressure from customers since late February to expand output. He’s at full production now, and is looking for ways to make more of the lights.
Several masks can be sterilized at once with short-wavelength UVC light. This wasn’t something health care providers looked into until recently, said Ell.
“For the most part, hospitals didn’t really buy into a lot of this equipment, because prior to this crisis they thought there were plenty of masks,” he said. “All of a sudden, now it’s like, alright, we don’t have enough.”
Many doctors and hospitals around the world are experimenting with using UV lamps to sterilize masks, in part because of the mask shortage that is forcing some health professionals to reuse them. This particular use for the lamps hasn’t been thoroughly tested, said Ell and Jim Fraser, a UV consultant in Toronto who works with manufacturers and companies that develop UV systems.
“Lots of people are ramping up their UV lamp production because of Covid-19,” said Fraser. “It can be easily reproduced for hospital room treatment and maybe for masks.”
While it’s known that UV light can inactivate the Covid-19 virus, nobody yet knows what the correct dose is, said Fraser. The UV lamps stop the virus from reproducing. But, Fraser said, the light might not reach all of the virus.
“We need testing. We need anybody who is supplying equipment to prove the UVC works, that it doesn’t damage the masks, that it is penetrating deep enough that it’s not allowing other things to grow,” said Fraser. He added that he’s working with medical professionals who are already starting to use UV to sterilize equipment such as masks.
Ell, who has about 70 employees at his company in Poultney, started hearing in February from customers who wanted to use the lights for an array of sterilizing jobs related to the unfolding coronavirus crisis. Right now, demand is highest in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, he said. It’s a little slower in Europe, where several countries are also in the throes of the crisis, because it’s difficult to ship products there at the moment.
Asked where the base of UV lamp manufacturing is located in North America, Fraser responded that it was at Ell’s company in rural Poultney, population 3,400, and in Connecticut, where there is another UV lamp manufacturer. Ell was previously involved with that company. There are also manufacturers in China and Germany.
“Finding customers has always been relatively easy because there are not a lot of people who do what we do,” said Ell, whose company works in partnership with the lighting equipment manufacturers. “They always find us.”
Most of the UV equipment companies in the U.S. and Canada are putting together lights made with parts manufactured in Vermont and Connecticut, Fraser said.
The sterilizing potential of UVC light means these are busy times at the offices of the International Ultraviolet Association (IUVA) in Chevy Chase, Maryland, which is promoting UV in reducing the transmission of the new coronavirus. Among other things, the group is working to distinguish UVC, UV disinfection, and UV — defined by the association as UVC light energy in the germicidal range — from the ultraviolet light used in tanning beds.
The IUVA is also working to develop disinfection testing standards.
Ell started First Light in 1994, choosing Poultney because he got a great deal on an empty building there. He had worked for several years as an entrepreneur, always focused on specialty lamps. He expects the company, now at maximum capacity, to increase production by 15% to 20% during the Covid-19 crisis through overtime. First Light is fully staffed, and Ell in March gave his manufacturing workers raises to thank them for staying on the job at a time when contact with others is hazardous.
“It’s not easy for us to ramp up,” he said. “We’re really a niche business with a skilled, experienced labor force. Now is not the time to start bringing new people into the operation. We’re trying to be very conscious of distancing, and limiting entry into the plant.”
Raw materials are also hard to find right now, with plants in India and elsewhere shut down because of the coronavirus.
Ell hasn’t lost any workers since the crisis began. He thinks the pay increase is key.
Also, “I think everyone in the company has really rallied around the fact that we have people counting on us to deliver this product,” he said. “We’re hopefully doing our part for the war effort, as the politicians put it.”
