Australia's Science Forum

Hello everyone

we have had a bit of an incident here with a new kitchen and UV lights apparently casuing health issues - the lights have been on but the exhaust fans for what ever reason have not been on - there has beena build up of something that is causing headaches, nausea breathing issues. I was asksed if it was a chemcials smell due to one of the suppliers saying that is what it was from the glue and it would go away - formaldhye and MEK - as i know what they smell like, being a labbie (??) i was asked if that is what they were - NOPE!
so the next theroy that has been grabbed and run with is ozone created form the UV lights !!!
is this possible? I figure like the UV lamps we use they are just another wave length of light!!!

if this is a dumb question i will apologise now

When I read the symptoms me immediate thought was 'its ozone'. I know photocopiers give off ozone, but I couldnt say if its the case for uv lights. It doesnt sound right to me, though. I used to work at a sportcenter were they had heaps of solariums and they never gave off any ozone, I know cause I am supersensitive to it and get a headache just walking past a photocopier...

Sassi

Oki I proved myself wrong... Just googled it and one of the ways to create ozone is by UV-light... So I guess then yes UV-light could probably give off ozone.

thanks for that - i googled but of course after i posted - wow really did not know - learn something new each day

thanks again

Can you please explain why and what you need UV lights for?
As I always thought that UV lights were dangerous and were used as a form of disinfection in a laminar flow cabinet after use and you had to close the doors on the laminar flow cabinet and switch the UV light on. Least that what I had to do when studying Medical Laboratory Techniques at TAFE and Aquaculture at Uni.