STTR Phase I:Rapid Point-of-Care Sterilization of Personal Protective Equipment for Frontline Healthcare Workers (COVID-19)

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer, Phase I project is to improve public health.During the COVID-19 pandemic, personal protective equipment (PPE), including filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs), have been critical to containing disease spread and protecting first responders and healthcare workers on the frontlines. Shortages of FFRs have led public health agencies to provide guidance in favor of FFR decontamination and re-use as a crisis capacity strategy. This project seeks to develop a cost-effective approach to support sterilization and re-use of personal protective equipment at the point-of-care. The technology seeks to develop and evaluate a simple, low-cost, sterilization receptacle for the effective, automated decontamination of FFRs. The aim is to enable first responders and healthcare workers to sterilize FFRs and prepare them at the point of care for re-use within minutes.This capability can be useful both in the current and potential future pandemics.This STTR Phase I project seeks to harness high voltage pulsed electric fields (PEFs) for decontamination and re-use of FFRs. In addition to killing bacteria and fungi, PEF has been observed to rapidly inactivate enteric viruses within seconds of exposure. PEF can also be used to electrically recharge FFR mask fibers prior to re-use.The filtration efficiency of N-95 FFRs is improved by an intermediate layer of charged polypropylene electret fibers that trap small particles through electrostatic or electrophoretic effects.A prototype will be constructed and evaluated on FFRs inoculated with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV2, in a clinical virology lab to directly demonstrate sterilization and recharge efficacy. The project will establish whether such a system will allow multiple sterilizations and fiber recharging cycles without affecting FFR function or efficacy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.