Wristband checks for sunburn while you relax on holiday

Your annual holiday sunburn may soon become a thing of the past thanks to the latest invention – a sunburn indicator.

The wrist band measures sun exposure, slowly changing colour and giving advanced warning when it is time to get out of the sun.

The device will soon become a product, said its inventor, Dr David Hazafy of Queen’s University Belfast. “We have just started a company and plan to develop it,” he said.

The blue plastic strip is worn as a bracelet, and the blue gradually fades at a speed that depends on a person’s skin type.

“On the side of the band there will be a colour code so you know how much time you have left before getting out of the sun,” he said.

Financing his new venture should be no problem, given the science behind his invention was rewarded with a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellowship, worth almost €120,000.

Disarmingly simple

He will receive business training and mentoring to help his company get up and running, but the idea is so disarmingly simple it seems a sure thing.

A little less straightforward was the research that makes his wrist band work. It uses a kind of “smart ink” that reacts with ultraviolet light from the sun to gradually break down the blue dye.

The good news is it is “simple and inexpensive” and will certainly sell for no more than €7, he said.

The thing that makes the smart ink work is a photocatalyst, and the same thing could be used in a much different way, as a light-driven antibacterial plastic film.

Instead of bleaching out a dye the photocatalyst could be used to kill off harmful bacteria on hospital curtains, flooring and other surfaces, he said. He has set up a company SunCatalyst Laboratories and hopes to develop lots of uses for his discovery.