COVID SHIELD

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COVID SHIELD

Sunday, 27 June 2021 | Shalini Saksena

COVID SHIELD

COVID-19 has led to many innovations. SHALINI SAKSENA chats up such innovators who are doing their bit to fight the pandemic

Mask-up the right way

The second wave of COVID-19 shook the nation. The numbers had just started to go down when news headlines once again started talking about the third wave, a wave that is far more lethal than the second ever was. Maintaining COVID-19 protocol has never been more important as it is today. Since the mutated variant of Delta Virus is more powerful single cloth masks and ordinary masks may not give sufficient protection.

Another problem is that most masks do not fit around the nose causing people to either wear it below their nose or to keep adjusting them. To solve this problem, World University of Design has come up with a new design that provides utmost safety along with ease of functionality.

Professor Umair Khan along with his students and staff members have come up with a face mask that not just covers the nose, mouth and chin but envelopes them snugly. The mask has a specially designed extension. In fact, this is the USP of the mask. It follows the contours around the face and the nose and covers it completely. This ensures that any open space around the nose is blocked offering extra protection preventing the air from outside to slip in.

This is not all. The design does not allow vapours from the breath to be expelled out and fog up the spectacles thereby making it extremely functional for persons wearing glasses. Third, the design is such that one can wear the mask for long hours without any discomfort.

Dr Sanjay Gupta, vice-chancellor, Word University of Design tells you that once the idea came up, it took the team a week to come up with the final design of the mask. “Before we came up with this design, we examined many masks that were available in the market. Mostly, these mask were all about the material used rather than how the mask has been made. Most of the mask have space around the nose from where the air can pass. This is a problem for those who wear spectacles — it fogs the lens. This mask has been designed to cover, to create a flexible extension around the nose so that there is no gap left and the air has to go through the material and not from anywhere else. The idea behind the mask was to address the issue of fogging of the lens but when the second wave hit us and the virus became air borne, anything that is inhaled or exhaled has to be controlled and this mask did this brilliantly,” Gupta explains.

Made with two layers of simple cotton fabric, the mask took a week’s time to reach its final version after trials and feedback from volunteers.

Cotton fabric was used to make this innovative mask. However, there is no hard and fast rule that only cotton needs to be used. One can use two-layer that uses cotton-silk mix or the three-ply light weight non-woven material used for surgical masks.

But Gupta recommends that one uses cotton as an inner layer. The design has been developed mindfully to fit any average Indian face size which can also be extended in case of larger/broader face structures. The good part is that this mask when made doesn’t cost more than Rs 15-Rs 20 per piece.

He tells you that the idea here is not to make money but to serve the country.  “Last year, we had designed a PPE kit and shared it on Insta. Anybody could pick it up and manufacture it, free of cost. The same is true for this mask. We already shared the design on social media. People can take the design from there and make their own mask. Unlike the normal mask this one goes around the nose in a bais form in a single piece,” Gupta says.

Mallika Gupta, one of the volunteers who was roped in to try the mask tells you that the design team gave her a few designs to try on. “I wear specs and yes, fogging is a big issue when one wears a mask. The team tested a lot of shapes and sizes. In fact, everyone in the campus has been weaning this mask and it can be Do It Yourself project. Since this pattern has been made public, there are a few players in the market who are making this mask. Also, the pattern is simple enough for a local tailor to replicate it. The good part of this mask is that it has been made keeping in mind the contouring around the nose,” Mallika says.

This is the coolest one

Like lakhs of students who went back home when colleges shut during summer vacation in 2020, Nihaal Singh Adarsh who is pursuing electronics engineering from KJ Somaiya College of Engineering, Mumbai also headed home in Pune. His college has a incubator Research Innovation Incubation Design Laboratory (Riidl) that held an open design competition challenge in which invited application for any kind of COVID-related problem solutions. That is when the idea of Cov-tech Ventilation System took root.

The Riidl is supported by the National Science & Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, Department of Science & Technology, Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, Department of Biotechnology and Maharashtra State Innovation Society.

His start-up received the NIDHI PRAYAS grant of Rs 10 lakh from the Department of Science and Technology for his  prototype development and product innovation.

Adarsh who is the founder of Watt Technovations and is the chief innovator of Cov-tech Ventilation System tells you that his mother, Dr Poonam Kaur Adarsh, is the reason how he came up with this system.

“I asked my mother what were some of the problems that doctors were facing. That is when she told me the problem that arises due to wearing PPE kits for long hours — the heat and the sweat that builds up. She told me that there was little ventilation and that meant that doctors who be sweating profusely leading to accumulation of bacteria. This is when I got the idea of developing a gadget that can help ventilate the kit itself,” Adarsh tells you.

The system, he says is extremely economical and compact which is an add-on component that is to be worn around the waist over the PPE kit.

“We all know that PPE kits have poor ventilation; it is almost like being inside a plastic bag for eight hours. What this system does is take the air from outside and filters it through a polypropylene fibre with efficiency of 99 per cent. It has lithium-ion battery that lasts for six to eight hours and runs on pulse width modulation technology. This filter pumps air inside the suit which then escapes through space around the neck and the hands.So there is a constant flow of air inside the PPE kit helping the doctors be more comfortable,” Adarsh explains.

In other words the system is an external device that is connected to the PPE kit. In order to connect this device with the suit a small hole has to be created in the PPE. The ventilation system comes with a stencil that helps to cut the precise hole in the kit with the scissors. The device has been designed in such a way that once it is attached to the kit it is a tight fit and there is no leakage.

“The stencil that has been provided ensures that the right size hole is cut. Even if it is not a precise round, the device has been made in such a manner that it will fit snugly. Since the final product was made, my mother and a few doctors have been wearing the kit and the results have been satisfactory. While my mother doesn’t need to wear the device since it has started raining in Pune, there are two hospitals — Lotus  Multispeciality Hospital and  Sai Sneha Hospitals in Pune. A few units have also been sent to hospitals pan India and are being used by NGOs and private practitioners,” Adarsh says. He has sold 20 units and because of the results, there are many queries from other hospitals. For the manufacturing, Sanjay Technoplast. The device is priced at Rs 5,499 per unit and is a one time buy.

For now, Adarsh is busy expanding his business and focus on perfecting the device. After his graduation, he plans to go abroad for his masters with masters in technology and a minor in entreprenuership.

“The aim is to continue to innovate more products. My venture in India will continue  even if  am not here. But I have another two years to go; it is  a long way to go,” Adarsh says.

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