I was president of the IET for 2016-17, and have been asked by government to gather practical and innovative ideas from our Engineering communities. So, please enter any ideas you might have in this thread that might help address and mitigate the Covid-19 crisis. Ideas might include digital tracking / monitoring through therapy equipment and beyond. Even ideas outside your usual expertise domain will be welcome. Now’s the time for Engineering to show we can change the world!
Alternatively: How do we sterilise the ones we have? A client of mine has done some research into this for an Australian hospital. The typical face mask filters by use of elecrostatics, it uses the feild to capture the virus in the thin filter. This is the reason they have a 4hr life, as you breathe you pull the virus load through the filter. UV doesn't penetrate the filter, so doesn't sterilise fully, same with Ozone. Washing, removes the chemicals and static provision elements of the mask, so leaves it defenceless. The method he prescribed, and it requires clinical evaluation... was to subject the mask to 130 C for 3 minutes. That was hot enough to kill anything in the mask, not hot enough to damage the mask, and would not damage the specialist elements in the mask material. That works for that type of mask... the Koreans, apparently added to this that each practitioner should bag their own masks and use those again.
Alternatively: How do we sterilise the ones we have? A client of mine has done some research into this for an Australian hospital. The typical face mask filters by use of elecrostatics, it uses the feild to capture the virus in the thin filter. This is the reason they have a 4hr life, as you breathe you pull the virus load through the filter. UV doesn't penetrate the filter, so doesn't sterilise fully, same with Ozone. Washing, removes the chemicals and static provision elements of the mask, so leaves it defenceless. The method he prescribed, and it requires clinical evaluation... was to subject the mask to 130 C for 3 minutes. That was hot enough to kill anything in the mask, not hot enough to damage the mask, and would not damage the specialist elements in the mask material. That works for that type of mask... the Koreans, apparently added to this that each practitioner should bag their own masks and use those again.
