A Swiss team has spent the past two years developing a transparent, breathable material that it hopes will replace traditional face masks.
With the spread of the coronavirus, facial masks have become a basis in everyday life as countries try to reopen and maintain some sense of normality. Some adopted the masks and tried to further integrate them with daily life. Launch of “trikini” For the summer, which includes customized face masks with swimsuits.
However, most people find it difficult to adapt to the new norm they find themselves, including constantly covering their faces. A new type of face mask can make this change a little easier.
Klaus Schönenberger helped out the 2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa and saw the benefits and limitations of medical facial masks. The most important thing was that there was no facial interaction that could be crucial to assist hearing-impaired patients.
“It was touching to see the nurses covered in head-to-toe in their protective clothing, holding their photos on their chest so that they could see the patients’ faces,” he said. a statement on the project website.
Schönenberger started developing HelloMask with the EssentialTech Center and the Swiss federal material-science center Empa. Thierry Pelet, formerly the project manager at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne School of Life Sciences, applied to Schönenberger to help develop the mask.
The goal was to create a transparent but still medically filtered mask. Unlike existing products that are intended to provide transparent face protection but are bulky and bulky, HelloMask will be similar in design and functionality to existing green, blue and white medical masks.
In the pellet written statement, “When you look online, you can find the prototypes of the partially transparent masks, but some of the fabric are normal masks that are replaced with transparent plastic. The mask developed by the group should work as medical masks do, and there should be pores small enough to allow air to pass through while blocking viruses and bacteria in the material.
HelloMask was originally funded by several dozen nonprofits and later won grants for funding. Masks will initially sell to hospitals and healthcare professionals, but the plan aims to quickly introduce masks to the mass market and start production in early 2021.
