COVID-19 Rapid Response: Bio-Aerosols in Agriculture and Food Processing

The COVID-19 Pandemic has caused many farmers rancher and food supply workers to loseincome and jobs in rural areas. Furthermore COVID-19 has claimed many lives especiallyamongst the elderly and low-income population in rural areas.The goal of this USDA SBIRproject is to provide a new type of personal protective equipment (PPE) that will directly andindirectly benefit rural populations by improving economic opportunities increasing laborforce participation return lost jobs improve food security and significantly reduce COVID-19mortality in rural communities. Aerophase has filed provisional patents for innovative PPE thatprovides air filtration and total face protection from COVID-19 and other airborne hazards.The proposed USDA SBIR project integrates COVID-19 face and respiratory protection in alight-weight hard hat similar to that often used in harvesting and food processing. The objectiveis to provide impact head protection pollen protection and COVID-19 Bio-Aerosol protectionfor a person's entire head including a person's eyes and respiratory system. Another importantobjective is to provide better protection from COVID-19 than any combination of respiratormask (N95 N99 N100) goggles visor and hard hat. Unlike any similar hat or helmetintegrated air filter systems the proposed innovations focus on very low purchase price lowoperating cost and safe operation in a labor intensive work environment (not a lab). One SBIRproject goal is to have savings from frequently disposed respirator masks (N95 masks etc.)alone pay for the Aerophase long filter life PPE in a few weeks.