Can’t get your hands on sanitisers? City techie comes up with a DIY sanitiser pen

Hand sanitisers are quickly selling out across the city as stock up in an attempt to protect themselves against Covid-19 (coronavirus).

Hand sanitisers are quickly selling out across the city as stock up in an attempt to protect themselves against Covid-19 (coronavirus).

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While people are constantly being reminded of social distancing and washing hands, one cannot leave everyday gestures of pressing the buttons of lift or opening the door. Keeping this in mind, Vijay Sheth, an IT professional residing in Balewadi. designed a do-it-yourself sanitiser pen which can help people in daily usage of doors, lifts.

“While having dinner with my wife Deepal, the doorbell rang, this triggered the question of how to avoid touching any of the finger operational surfaces like doorbells, ATMs, door handle as they are the most contaminated surfaces, and we are scared to touch them due to coronavirus spread. Hence, after brainstorming, I decided to come up with a device that is portable and handy,” said Sheth.

“We explored various options like stick, hand gloves or any pointed object. When my son Dev was playing with the pen, that is when I thought to use a sanitiser gel along with the pen as it is hollow and can hold the gel too. This way we can sanitise the tip and all other objects or surfaces that are being touched with it.” he said.

Sheth then took a ball pen and added the gel inside it. They tried it on various surfaces and found that the idea worked. “We observed that when the pen tip touches any surface , it also releases some amount of gel, so it also sanitises the surface and the pen tip. We have been using it for a week and it is handy. We also made a do-it-yourself (DIY) video and shared it across social media platforms,” he added.