Wearing a mask or using Covid 19 preventive medical equipment has become a standard worldwide trend. Every day, the number of people infected is increasing alarmingly.
Medical personnel must wear additional protective equipment. However, they can still face a serious problem, which is the risk of becoming infected with Covid 19 if they accidentally touch a contaminated cloth surface.
Photo: The mask is made from a fabric containing disinfectant particles
Source: Vomaris Innovations, Inc .
Therefore, researchers are developing a fabric capable of neutralizing or repelling Corona virus - Covid 19 and other pathogens.
A team of researchers at the Center for Regenerative Engineering and Medicine at Indiana University is developing electrically charged materials that "create electric fields on the fabric's surface in order to neutralize and repel viral molecules".
“Contaminated ingredients can be transmitted through human hands if they touch the front of the mask while using it,” said Chandan Sen, director of the Center for Regenerative Engineering and Medicine at Indiana University. or when they take off their gown or other protective equipment ”.
He et al. Had a way of turning those ingredients and infectious agents harmless. The team will study a "electrically charged" fabric that creates an "electric field on the surface of the fabric." That electric field will disrupt bacteria or virus activity in the fabric.
"The technology is inherently very simple," he added.
Spots of silver and zinc like polka dots are interlaced on the polyester fabric surface. They are 1 to 2 mm wide and 1 mm apart. When the charged fabric becomes dry, it acts like a regular fabric. But if it gets wet - for example, with saliva, vapor from a cough or other body fluids - ions in the liquid will trigger an electrochemical reaction.
The silver and zinc then create a weak electric field that kills pathogens on the fabric's surface.
Researchers co-developed this fabric in association with biotech company Vomaris Innovations in 2012.
Last year, they demonstrated that this technology was once used to treat wounds caused by bacterial infections. Sen said, a clinical trial is being conducted by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to further evaluate the fabric's effectiveness - which acts like a sterile dressing for treatment. wound.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sen's team tested the fabric on another strain of COVID 19 that causes respiratory disease in pigs and on an unrelated pathogen called lentivirus.
"We want to know how widely this fabric can be applied," he said.
In a study posted on the ChemRxiv server in May, Sen's team reported that their charged fabric destabilized both viruses, preventing them from infecting cells. The researchers also plan to submit the results to a scientific journal.
The antiviral properties of this fabric have not been tested individually with SARS-COV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Those are just the researchers' findings with the two viruses they studied.
Large-scale production of the electrically charged fabric is possible and costs to manufacture it, he adds. He further suggested that metal dots can be applied directly to the front of the mask. Or a layer of charged cloth may be inserted between the front of the mask and the inside in contact with the wearer.
https://vinatex.com.vn/10201-2/
Source: vinatex.com.vn
