To ensure our safety, cleaning the hands is the most necessary & basic step. It has to be done at regular intervals for 20 seconds at least. WHO has also released a video showing the proper way to clean the hand in and around fingers and nails.

For this we need a sanitizer or a hand wash. Although, if our hands are not clean and we touch the containers to release soap/sanitizier, it can get infected. To avoid this, a lot of developers have created a contactless hand sanitizer / Soap Dispenser. It is one of the best open source projects available at the moment which you can develop at home as well, if you have the components and understand coding for it.

Contactless hand sanitizer consists of a sensor (IR sensor or Ultrasonic sensor) along with a servo motor (or geared DC motor in some cases) and a programming board such as arudino, Uniko Ekam etc. As soon as the sensor senses a hand in front of it, the Servo motor moves and pulls the sanitizer valve down. This releases the sanitizer or the hand wash. The user can put his hands away from the sensor so the servo moves back to home position; and the valve moves up.

The placement of the sensor can be varied as per the user. The mechanics to move the valve also can be changed. Changes are to be made as per the sanitizer container / bottle you have at your own place. Hook up the sensor, motor and a microcontroller to design one such product for your place. Such contactless hand sanitizers are also available at sale by few companies. Follow the links to get updated about the stories and ways to create your own contactless hand sanitizer.

Image courtesy & instructions on how to make one –
https://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Automatic-Hand-Sanitizer-Soap-Dispenser/

https://www.reviewgeek.com/37500/these-kids-made-a-touch-free-hand-sanitizer-pump-and-we-love-it/