Mr. Soichiro Hirai, a second-year master’s course student of Special Educational Program on River Basin Environmental Science in Department of Engineering, received the Environmental Technology/Project Award at the 60th Environmental Engineering Forum.

Mr. Soichiro Hirai, a second-year master’s course student of Special Educational Program on River Basin Environmental Science in Department of Engineering (supervisor: Prof. Eiji Haramoto, Interdisciplinary Center for River Basin Environment), received the Environmental Technology/Project Award at the 60th Environmental Engineering Forum held from November 29 (Wed) to December 1 (Fri), 2023, at KDDI Ishin Hall (Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture). This award is given to the poster presentations that report the outstanding technology.The title of Mr. Hirai’s presentation was “Development of a method for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in air cleaners.” To contribute to the establishment of a society resilient to infectious diseases, he developed a method to collect and detect SARS-CoV-2 trapped to the filters of air cleaners and conducted demonstration tests at 10 sites in a hospital where air cleaners were installed. The tests successfully visualized the number of viruses in each site. This research was conducted as a joint research project between Haramoto Laboratory and Raijin-No-Kaze Co., Ltd (Representative Director: Mr. Satoru Hosoda).
Mr. Hirai, said, “I am very honored to receive such a prestigious award. I am grateful to Prof. Haramoto, Mr. Hosoda, and the members in my laboratory for their guidance and support of my research. I will focus on further developing this research in the future.”