PPE Challenge Accepted Zeb Ahmed and Nick Geary talk to Adam Duckett about the projects they are facilitating to help fight Covid-19

摘要

YOU'D have to have been hiding under a rock-and under the current circumstances who could blame you-to learn right here,right now that the world faces a pressing shortage of PPE.The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted supply chains and put healthcare workers at significant risk as many have been asked to continue leading the fight against infection without adequate protection.While the supply of PPE is ramping up,it is curtailed by production bottlenecks,including the many months and millions of dollars required to set up new production lines for the non-woven"meltblown"polypropylene that acts as the life-saving filter in masks.These circumstances have prompted volunteers on IChemE's Covid-19 Response Team to search for ways to help bypass the shortage of fresh supplies: one that asks"can we use a barrier technology that provides the type of engineered isolation commonly seen in manufacturing environments?"And a second,"can we decontaminate used PPE rather than simply throwing it away?"