An innovative faucet for cleaning hands, PPE, ventilator parts etc.

自2015年以来，我们一直在普及，我们应该洗手的2轮'快乐的一天'，通过建立游戏/科学节展品。我们展示了许多孩子从厕所里出来，至少有一天，他们在厕所里唱着“生日快乐”。然而，当肥皂/洗涤剂/漂白剂变得稀缺时，当生产商/仓库工作人员和送货司机生病时，供应链断裂时，当家庭/医院/仓库/游轮上的当地供应耗尽时，我们该怎么办？为了应对这种可能性，我们设计了一种水龙头，可以用未加热的水清洗，不用肥皂。此外，当肥皂，漂白剂和其他添加剂可用时，这种设备使它们更加有效。野战医院需要最低限度的水和电来运行：有了这个，我们的设备可以清洁手/PPE/呼吸机部件和食物托盘等。水龙头通过将声音传递到水流中来工作。它已被证明可以去除各种污染物。它对皮肤是安全的，并且在去除细菌和真菌方面非常有效。计划由一名NHS试点人员清理导致变异CJD（疯牛病）的污染物，这是最难消除的污染物之一。由于COVID-19，该试点现已推迟，我们希望以一种方式改变该设备，以允许其更广泛地用于清除冠状病毒。该修改将防止喷嘴出口处的少量水滴喷射：喷射的水滴是干净的、未受污染的水，但我们不能提供一种在每个人都应该自动避免水滴的环境中喷射水滴的产品，即使没有污染的风险。我们的6个月工作计划将消除这种水滴喷射，消除了阻碍美国扩大生产的障碍，以供应新建医院（首先）和游轮使用这些水龙头，并使现有机构根据需要更换现有水龙头。然后，我们希望进一步扩大供应家庭，以便使用温肥皂水进行清洁可以更加有效;并且因此，我们目前必须在未加热的水中清洁的物品（沙拉，水果）或具有低浓度化学品的温和加热的水中清洁的物品（婴儿的皮肤）可以有效地清洁。当这种洗手液被广泛使用时，它们将在下一次大流行的第一天起同样有效，而不需要等待12个月的疫苗和治疗。洗手平均持续6秒，而不是建议的20秒：我们的水龙头应该使这些6s的水龙头和传统水龙头下的20 s水龙头一样有效。通过为制造而设计和与供应商合作，降低批量生产的单件成本，开展工作，提高我们超声波水龙头昂贵和复杂部件的可制造性。这些复杂部件对器械性能至关重要，因此在开发周期的早期解决这些问题将降低任何变更的风险，并消除在周期后期引入变更时所需的额外测试。通过这种方式，我们希望最终能够广泛使用具有两种功能的超声波水龙头。其主要功能是，当有肥皂可用时，人们将在普通人用于洗手的6秒内获得相当于传统水龙头下20秒的清洁体验。第二个功能是，当没有肥皂时（由于疾病或恐慌购买导致生产/分销/供应链中断或延迟，家庭，救护车，诊所，南丁格尔医院，游轮等）。特别是在大流行开始时，仍然可以达到有用的清洁水平。通过这种方式，我们希望打破人与人之间的感染链，不仅仅是针对COVID-19等病毒性大流行病，而是针对未来的大流行病，这些大流行病可能是细菌或真菌，而为对抗COVID-19而开发的疫苗将无效。

Since 2015 we have been popularising that we should handwash for 2-rounds of 'Happy-Birthday', by building games/science festival exhibits. We showed many children went from it and, for one day at least, sang 'Happy-Birthday' in the toilets. However, what will we do when soap/detergent/bleach gets scarce, as producers/warehouse staff and delivery-drivers fall sick, supply-chains break, and the local supplies in homes/hospitals/warehouses/cruise-ships run out? To prepare for that eventuality, we designed a faucet that can clean with unheated water, without soap. Moreover, when soap, bleach and other additives are available, this device makes them far more effective. Field hospitals need a minimum of water and electricity to run: with this, our device can clean hands/PPE/ventilator parts and food trays etc.The faucet works by passing sound down the stream of water. It has been proven to remove all manner of contaminants. It is safe for skin, and highly effective at removing bacteria and fungi. It was scheduled for an NHS-pilot to clean the contaminant that causes variant-CJD ('mad cow disease'), one of the most difficult contaminants to eliminate. That pilot is now postponed because of COVID-19, and we wish to alter the device in one way, to allow its use more widely for removing Coronavirus. That amendment will prevent the small amount of water droplet-ejection at the nozzle exit: the ejected droplets are clean, uncontaminated water, but we cannot provide a product that ejects droplets, even with no risk of contamination, in an environment where everyone should be automatically avoiding droplets.Our 6-month workplan will eliminate this droplet-ejection, removing an obstacle that is stopping us scaling-up production to supply the new-build hospitals (in the first instance) and the cruise ships to use these faucets, and for existing establishments to replace existing taps with them as needed. We then wish to further scale-up to supply homes, so that cleaning with warm soapy water can be made more effective; and so that those items we currently must clean in unheated water (salad, fruit) or mildly heated water with low concentrations of chemicals (the skin of babies) can be effectively cleaned. When such faucets are widely used, they will be equally effective from day one of the next pandemic, without the need to wait 12-months for vaccines and cures.The average hand washing lasts 6s, not the recommended 20s: our faucets should make those 6s as effective as 20s under a traditional faucet.An extension for impact funding will allow Sloan Water Technology Ltd. (SWT) to conduct work to improve the manufacturability of expensive and complex parts of our ultrasonic water-tap, through design for manufacture and working with suppliers to reduce their piece cost at volume. These complex parts are critical to the performance of the device, so addressing these issues earlier on in the development cycle will reduce risk of any changes made and remove the additional testing that would be required if the changes were introduced later in the cycle. In this way we hope eventually to make widely available ultrasonic water-taps that perform two functions. The primary function is that, when soap is available, people will get, within the 6s the average person devotes to handwashing, a cleaning experience equivalent to 20s under a traditional water-tap. The secondary function is that when soap is not available (because of interruptions or delays to the production/distribution/supply chain because of illness, or panic-buying, for households, ambulances, clinics, Nightingale hospitals, cruise ships etc.) especially at the start of a pandemic, a useful level, of cleaning can still be achieved. In this way we hope to break the chain of infection from person-to-person, not just for viral pandemics such as COVID-19, but for future pandemics, which may be bacterial or fungal and for which the vaccines developed to combat COVID-19 will be ineffective.