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International Journal of Recent Advances in Multidisciplinary Research

Vol. 07, Issue 06, pp.5951-5953, June, 2020

RESEARCH ARTICLE
DEVELOPMENT OF AN AUTOMATIC HAND WASHING DISPENSER COVID 19
1
*OLUMUREWA J. A. V. 2 AKINPELU E.O. 3 AJIMUDA O., 4EWETUMO T. and 5OLABIYI J.A.

1
Department of Food Science and Technology, The Federal University of Technology, Akure
2,3,4
Department of Physics, The Federal University of Technology, Akure
5
Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, The Federal University of Technology, Akure

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Article History: The outbreak of coronavirus (COVID 19) has led to the death of over 400,000 all over globe and over
Received 19th March, 2020 7 million of confirmed cases within five months and exact drug for immunization and cure has not
Received in revised form been obtained but preventive measure can be taken. One of such preventive measures involved
07th April, 2020 washing of hand regularly, especially in the public like schools, shopping centers, religion centers,
Accepted 29th May, 2020 offices, bankse.t.c need to have automatic hand washing dispenser. In this work a low cost automatic
Published online 30th June, 2020 hand washing dispenser was developed. It consists of three containers with soap, water and sanitizer,
horse, 12 V dc pump, proximity detector, Arduino board, multicolor LED indicator, and battery plus
Keywords: solar power source. All are housed inside metal rectangular box including washing metal steel basing.
Coronavirus, Dispenser, Ultrasonic Sensor, Arduino microcontroller is used to coordinate the activities, it monitors the three ultrasound wave that
Pump and Arduino.
travel from the transmitter to the receiver and compute for distance for each ultrasonic sensor.
Distance used in detecting the present of hand is 15 cm, any object closed to the sensor less than that
distance its triggers soap or water or sanitizer pump and fluid flow at predetermine time. The soap and
sanitizer flow for 100 ms and water for 1 s. The operating time is 2000 ms, i.e time taken when hands
are placed under the sensors and discharging of fluids is2000 ms.

one should stay at home as much as possible, while going out,

INTRODUCTION keep at least 6 feet away from others; wearing of face mask in
the public to protect others reduces COVID-19, (this isn’t a
Since the outbreak of coronavirus called COVID 19,for some replacement for social distancing) there is need to keep a 6-
months ago it has created fear on the existence of human foot distance between one and another; do not touch your face
being. A COVID 19 cases as at June 14, 2020 on statistics and with because coronaviruses can live on surfaces touched for
information officially released by World Health Organization several hours. If they get on once hands and such a person
(WHO) website have 7,690,708 confirmed cases and 427,630 touches his/her eyes, nose, or mouth, they can get into the
deaths (https/covid19.who.int/?glcid=EAlai). It was further body; and regularly clean and disinfect, one can clean first
broken down by the World Health Organization according to with soap and water, but disinfect surfaces one touch often,
continent in Americas, Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, South- like tables, doorknobs, light switches, toilets, faucets, and sinks
East Asia, Western Pacific and Africa confirmed cases were were very necessary approved material to treat SARS-CoV-2.
3711768, 2398779, 758551, 455439, 197864 and 167566 (www.webmd.com/lung/coronavirus). The face covering is
respectively. As at the time of compiling this information, easy to obtain at cheap rate and social distance is easy to
United State of Americas has the highest confirmed cases maintain. But regular hand washing in the public place is a
while Africa has the least. During the period, offices, thing of concern, especially in banks, schools, shopping
gymnastic centers, schools and shopping centers were closed complex, police stations, hospitals, government offices,
down in countries around the globe. Economics activities shot market, worship centers like churches, mosque and view
down and people were under total lockdown, no movement centers. There is need to developed very cheap automatic hand
and no transaction for many months. No specific drug has been washing dispenser stress free, burden free and non-contagious.
found in treatment of coronavirus, but some measures are
extremely necessary to prevention coronavirus which are: Basic block diagram of covid 19 hand washing machine:
Often hands washing with soap and water and clean them with The COVID 19 hand washing machine consists of three
an alcohol-based sanitizer and this kills virus on your hands; containers i.e containing soap, water and sanitizer, horse, 12 V
practice social distancing to reduce the spread of the virus and dc pump, proximity detector, Arduino board, multicolor LED
indicator, and battery plus solar power source. All are housed
inside metal rectangular box including washing metal steel
*Corresponding author: Famurewa, basing. The basic block diagram of the control circuit is shown
Food Science and Technology, The Federal University of in Figure 1.
Technology, Akure.
 Range Detection Sensor HC-SR04 Manual). The sensor sends
out an ultrasound of about 40 KHz when it is triggered through
pin 2. As soon as the wave hits an obstacle, it is reflected and
returned to the receiver so that a pulse (5 V) is produced by pin
3 (echo). (Theophiluset al., 2019; Mohd, 2016).The Arduino
microcontroller measures and records the time t taken by the
ultrasound wave to travel between the transmitter and receiver.
Distance used for the detecting of the present of hand is 15 cm,
any object closed to the sensor less than that distance its
triggers soap or water or sanitizer pump and fluid flow at
predetermine. Soap and sanitizer flow for 100 ms while water
for 1 s.
Figure 1: The Block Diagram of an Automatic Hand Washing
Dispenser for
COVID 19

Metal Housing, Design and Construction

The metal housing is 14000 mm x 950 mm x 2800 mm. The

metal housing is frame by using 1 inch angle iron and 1.5 mm
iron sheet for covering. In the Figure 2 shows the constructed
housing and position of the installed part.

Fig. 3: The HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor Connection

Switching Unit: The transistor switching device was

employed to trigger a relay on in order to engage or disengage
the pump. When 5V from digital pin of Arduino is at the base
of the transistor, the base emitter junction conducts and allows
current to from collector to the emitter through a load (relay)
and then energized it (Buliaminuet al., 2010). It activated until
the digital pin of Arduino is at zero volt(LOW). The diode
across the relay is to remove the back emf of the relay coil as
shown Figure 4.

Figure 2: The Constructed Housing

Sensing Unit: Ultrasonic sensors produce sound waves at

frequencies (above 20KHz) which are beyond human hearing
capability. A complete ultrasonic transceiver consists of a
transmitter and a receiver. The ultrasonic sensor used in this
work operates in the pitch catch mode. The transmitter and the
receiver are installed at the same side thus functioning as a
single transceiver. Ultrasonic transmitter emits an ultrasonic
wave in one direction, and immediately starts a time counter.
The wave spread in the air, and is reflected when encounters
the obstacles along its path. The ultrasonic receiver stops the Figure 4: Switching Circuit
time count when it receives the reflected wave. Since wave
velocity in the air is 340 m/s, and the wave’s time of flight is The flow liquid (soap, water and sanitizer) using pump
recorded as t, we can calculate the distance h between the
obstacle and the transmitter as h = 340t / 2. This is the echo Pumps were used to raise the soap, water and sanitizer level
method of probing depth otherwise known as time difference and at intermediate points to boost the pressure for discharging
distance measurement principle. The Ultrasonic sensor used the liquids.A centrifugal pump used consists of a rotating shaft
for this project is the Arduino ultrasonic range detector HC- that is connected to an impeller, which is usually comprised of
SR04 shown in Figure 3. It is capable of detecting obstacle curved blades. The impeller rotates within its casing and sucks
within a range of 2cm to 500cm with a voltage supply of 5 V the fluid through the eye of the casing (point 1 in Figure 5).
(EF03085 HC-SR04 User Guide and Arduino Ultrasonic The fluid’s kinetic energy increases due to the energy added by
the impeller and enters the discharge end of the casing that has Figure 6. The Complete Circuit of an Automatic Hand Washing
an expanding area (point 2 in Figure 5). The pressure within Dispenser for COVID 19
the fluid increases accordingly.The rotating shaft was coupled
to a dc motor that supply the propelling action. The small dc Testing and examination of automatic hand washing
pump can deliver 2.5 liter per min, 12 V/0.3 A. dispenser: The whole system was assembled as shown in
Figure 7. Hand was inserted under each detectors and soap,
water and sanitizer was coming out.It was discover that the
time hand was inserted and time at which water comes out was
about 2 seconds. It was tested repeatedly and function without
malfunction. The energy source is from solar and battery.

Figure 5. Schematic of a Typical Centrifugal Pump

ATmega328p Microcontroller

Microcontroller is small size computer containing processor

core, memory and programmable input-output peripheral.
Microcontrollers are designed for the use ofembedded
applications, in contrast with microprocessor which are used
for personal computers and other general purpose
applicationAtmega328 is a low power, high performance;
CMOS 8-bit microcontroller based on the AV Renhanced
RISC architecture. Atmega328 provides 32K bytes of in-
system self-programmable memory with read while write
capability and 1Kbyte EPROM (Ewetumo et al. 2019; Figure 7. Shows Completed Automatic Hand Washing Dispenser
Obagade and Ewetumo 2019)
Conclusion
Circuit Description: The three relay were used to drive the
three pumps. The inputs triggers of the switching circuit were In public places where people come IN and OUT every time
connected to digital pins 8, 9 and 10. Also, digital pins 5, 6 and like banks, schools, shopping complex, religion centers,
7 are in pinging mode to communication the ultrasonic finders. government offices, hospitals and police stations require high
The distance of each finder is set to trigger at less than 15 cm. precaution and prevention from coronavirus. Since other
The complete Schematic diagram is shown on Figure 6. The preventive measures like social distancing, covering of nose
LEDs indicator gives information on activities that is going on. and mouth are easy to take care of. Washing of hand involves
Red, Green and blue indicate soap, water and sanitizer tap opening using manual or mechanical technique which is
respectively. stressful and contagious. The developed automatic hand
washing dispenser is stress and burden free. No energy
requires in tap opening and the fear of tap damaging is
completely eliminated. Even when closing the last tap one can
still come in contact with virus if someone have mistakenly
open before washing his or her hand with soap and water.
Insertion of hand to dispenser prevent transmission of virus
and delivers little quantity of soap, sanitizer and enough
quantity of water is discharge to wash the hand.

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