Development and manufacturing of innovative, low-cost, mass-produced, environmentally friendly filters and masks protecting against COVID-19

鉴于对口罩的需求激增，以防止COVID-19，有巨大的投资，新的口罩制造厂在英国。由于缺乏专门的口罩材料，因此需要在英国制造这些材料。在这项艰巨的努力中，我们组建了一个工业合作伙伴团队，包括口罩制造商、设备制造商和测试公司。我们的项目旨在将过滤器和口罩的制造带到英国，降低成本，并使用低成本，丰富和环保的材料开发卷对卷的增材制造工艺。该项目的主要想法是在测试后选择一系列天然纤维布，用作增材制造的基材。这种基底将涂覆一种新型多孔层，该多孔层具有捕获COVID-19和其他高风险病毒的官能团。静电纺丝被提议作为我们的增材制造技术，其中涂层和布基材的组装将通过过滤病毒来保护病毒，这取决于孔隙率、孔径、纤维取向、涂层厚度以及涂层和布的官能团。拟议的项目包括以下任务：（a）分子模拟，以根据材料和官能团与病毒峰值的结合能筛选材料和官能团;（B）连续渗透力学模拟，以研究病毒通过多孔材料组件的迁移，以及在口罩或气流过滤器的情况下的呼吸气流;（c）将静电纺丝发展为连续的卷对卷工艺;（d）材料和产品测试。

Given the surge in demand for masks to protect against CONVID-19, there is huge investment for new mask manufacturing plants in UK. A shortage of specialised mask materials points to the need to also manufacture these materials in UK. Enlisted in this herculean effort, we have assembled a team of industrial partners, including mask manufacturers, an equipment manufacturer, and testing companies. Our project aims at bringing manufacturing of filters and masks to the UK, lowering the cost and developing a roll-to-roll process of additive manufacturing using low-cost, abundant and environmentally-friendly materials. The principal idea of this project is to select, after testing, a range of natural-fibre cloths, to be used as substrate for additive manufacturing. Such substrates will be coated with a novel porous layer with functional groups trapping the COVID-19 and other high-risk viruses. Electrospinning is proposed as our additive manufacturing technique, where the assembly of coating layer(s) and cloth substrate will protect against the virus by filtering it, depending on porosity, pore size, fibre orientation, coating layer thickness and functional groups of coating and cloth. The proposed project includes the following tasks: (a) molecular simulations to screen materials and functional groups in terms of their binding energy with the virus spike; (b) continuum infiltration mechanics simulations to investigate the virus migration through the porous material assembly, as well as the air flow for breathing in the case of masks or air flow filters; (c) development of the electrospinning to a continuous roll-to-roll process; (d) material and product testing.