COVID-19 : High-volume electrospinning of high-performance cellulose membranes required for N95-grade mask fabrication

通过与我们的工业伙伴密切合作，我们建议利用我们对聚合物静电纺丝的了解和控制，以生产沉积在医用级纤维素基材上的高性能聚合物滤膜。反过来，这些高性能滤膜将由我们的工业合作伙伴大量生产，用于制造在当前大流行背景下必不可少的N95级防护口罩。在过去的十年里，我们进行了广泛的研究，以成功地生产复杂的微米和纳米工程聚合物结构，使用我们自己的特殊设计系统，使用精心控制的协同喷射和静电纺丝。 在这里，这些广博的知识(和我们的设备)将被适应并部署在我们的工业合作伙伴的设施中，以便迅速达到制造规模的生产能力。我们建议使用医用级纤维素基板(在魁北克加蒂诺生产)，以沉积生物兼容的电纺纤维层。为了达到N95级规格(95%的空气透过率，同时阻挡0.3微米以上的颗粒和液滴)，必须使用我们团队易于获得的四种技术之一将电纺薄膜熔合成更致密的自持式膜过滤器。因此，该项目的主要研究目标将是探索四(4)种可用于制造的后处理技术，即： (1)使用Adphos制造设备对电纺膜进行红外固化； (2)工业热压设备； (3)使用工业热床载体在预热的纤维素衬底上沉积；以及 (4)使用Novacentrix制造设备的光子(闪光)固化 为了实现电纺聚合物膜的适当固化，获得具有良好机械性能的N95级膜过滤器，以相对较低的成本大批量生产。

In close collaboration with our industrial partners, we propose to exploit our understanding and control of polymer electrospinning, in order to produce high-performance polymer-based filter membranes deposited on medical-grade cellulose substrates. In turn, these high-performance filter membranes will be produced in high volumes by our industrial partners for the manufacturing of N95-grade protection masks essential in the context of the current pandemic. In the last decade, we have done extensive research in order to successfully produce complex micro- and nano-engineered polymer structures using carefully-controlled co-jetting and electrospinning with our own specially-design system. Here, this extensive knowledge (and our apparatus) will be adapted and deployed within our industrial partner's facilities, in order to rapidly reach manufacturing-scale production capabilities. We propose to use medical grade cellulose substrates (produced in Gatineau, Québec) in order to deposit a biocompatible electrospun fiber layer. In order to achieve N95-grade specifications (95% air transmission while blocking 0.3+ microns particles and droplets), the electrospun film will have to be fused into a denser self-sustaining membrane filter using one of four techniques readily accessible by our team. As such, the key research objective of this project will be to explore four (4) manufacturing-ready post-processing techniques, namely: (1) infrared curing of the electrospun film using Adphos manufacturing equipment; (2) industrial hot-press equipment; (3) deposition on a pre-heated cellulose substrate using an industrial hot-bed carrier; and (4) photonic (flash) curing using Novacentrix manufacturing equipment in order to achieve a proper curing of the electrospun polymer film and obtain N95-grade membrane filters with good mechanical properties to be produced in high-volume and at relatively low costs.