[MaCorona]

One could built UV-Lightmasks.

A transparent hose, add UV-LEDS to sterilize the flowing air. Dry the air at the start with silica gel. All that is needed then is a battery.

The silica gel can be heated every once in a while to loose any moisture bound it and sterilize virus particles attached to it.

[steve_adams_86]

You'd need a specific wavelength (265nm seems to be the standard) and they get pretty expensive. A UV LED from adafruit or sparkfun will probably not be sufficient.

At a glance they sell LEDs around 400nm which from my cursory reading wouldn't be effective for what you're imagining.

Not to say this would never work. Just that you would need special parts that are less common and more expensive by orders of magnitude.

I've also read that sterilizing very fast moving air doesn't work well. It seems HVAC systems use extremely intense light order to be effective in these conditions, which a small LED (or a few) wouldn't accomplish.

[wwweston]

It seems more productive to hit the room with far UVC, and there are already some products that do that, not sure about scale though.

[numpad0]

Might as well make it a fully closed rebreather gear(note: CO2 removal is more important than adding oxygen)

[deepnotderp]

It would probably be easier to deploy far-uvc or resonant microwave anti microbial systems.

[lend000]

I hate to see creative ideas being down-voted by the mob.

While the length of UV exposure time required to kill viruses is probably impractical for a mask, certain UV bands could be instrumental for sanitizing public areas and hospitals. [0]

[0] https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20180212/can-uv-ligh...