Coronavirus Technology Solutions
May 28, 2020
Digital Simulation Shows that
Six Feet of Distancing is Not
Adequate
Multiple Studies Show that
Viruses Travel on Air Pollution
Particles
Airborne Transmission Evidence
Found in Wuhan
A Speaker Emits 1 to 50 Virus
Particles Per Second
Individuals Release up to
180,000 Liquid Aerosols and
Billions of Particles per Hour
Reshoring Could be Temporary Mondi will Build Meltblown Line and Mask Fabrication Facility for 1 Million Masks per Day
Berry Building 400 tpy Meltblown
Facility in South America
Gulsan Group is Adding a
3.2-Meter Meltblown Line in
Turkey
Borealis Producing Meltblowns
for Face Masks
Neenah Expanded Melt Blown
Capacity in Germany and is
Repurposing Other Machines
South Texas Health Systems
Purchases Eighteen Room
Purifiers and Four H2O2 Systems
_____________________________________________________________________________
Digital Simulation Shows that
Six Feet of Distancing is Not
Adequate
Digital simulation is much more
accepted in engineering than in
the medical industry. Digital
twins for engine conception and
design have become common
practice in the automotive and
aerospace industries. But
digital twinning is not yet
widespread in the medical
sector.
The Coronavirus is about to
change that, according to
Thierry Marchal. As the epidemic
was coming to Europe, he said,
Ansys started working on a
series of models mid-February,
with partners from the academic
world (Oklahoma
State University, University
of Eindhoven),
industrial groups
(pharmaceutical, medical,
automotive, aeronautic) and
regulators (the FDA in
the US). They decided to release
their studies in March when they
considered that their models
were accurate enough to give
recommendations on social
distancing to authorities.
Ansys' digital simulation shows
that droplets can be expelled up
to 28 meters when coughing or
sneezing.
For situations where there is a
breeze or people moving the
travel is different.
For the jogger, Ansys imagined
three cases: a) 2 people running
side by side, b) 2 people
running and passing each other,
and c) 2 people running one
behind the other. Theirry
Marchal of Ansys
first thought that the
most worrying case would be when
the two people pass each other.
But simulation shows that
because of the speed of the
jogger (~ 14
km/h), the potentially
contaminated droplets from a
breathing and/or coughing jogger
will go behind him/her and
easily reach the face and the
clothes of the following jogger.
We also incorporated in our
models the effect of the wind
when two people talk to each
other. We have shown that a
distance of 1.80m is good unless
there is the wind behind it. Our
studies show that in the case of
a very light breeze, 1m/s (under
4km/h) a distance of 1.80m is no
longer enough. When it is windy
and you want to talk to someone,
you have to check where the wind
is coming from and stand
perpendicular to the wind. Multiple
Studies Show that Viruses Travel
on Air Pollution Particles
The Italian scientists used
standard techniques to collect
outdoor air pollution samples at
one urban and one industrial
site in Bergamo province and
identified a gene highly
specific to Covid-19 in multiple
samples. The detection was
confirmed by blind testing at an
independent laboratory.
Previous studies have shown
that air
pollution particles do harbor
microbes and
that pollution is likely to have
carried the viruses causing bird
flu, measles and foot-and-mouth
disease over considerable
distances.
The potential role of air
pollution particles is linked to
the broader question of how the
coronavirus is transmitted.
Large virus-laden droplets from
infected people’s coughs and
sneezes fall to the ground
within a meter or two. But much
smaller droplets, less than 5
microns in diameter, can remain
in the air for minutes to hours
and travel further.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/24/coronavirus-detected-particles-air-pollution Airborne
Transmission Evidence Found in
Wuhan Scientists
have found evidence of air
transmission of COVID in public
spaces in Wuhan.
“Our finding has confirmed the
aerosol transmission as an
important pathway for surface
contamination. We call for extra
care and attention on the proper
design, use, and disinfection of
the toilets in hospitals and in
communities to minimize the
potential source of the
virus-laden aerosol.”
A Speaker Emits 1 to 50 Virus
Particles Per Second
Wired
has published an article which
makes a strong case for the
importance of air transmission.
A vast number of the particles
that come out of a person’s
mouth are much smaller, under 5
microns. They dry out quickly in
the air and become so light they
can float around for hours. Even
the slightly warm layer of air
constantly wafting upward from
every person—our “thermal
plume”—can carry these particles
up, up, and away. Random air
flow makes their spread
turbulent, bounced around by
currents like sand in a tide
pool. And we emit them all the
time. “If you look at what CDC
and WHO have been saying, they
downplay the role of airborne
transmission,” says Joseph
Allen, director of the Healthy
Buildings Program at the Harvard
School of Public Health. “I
think that’s a mistake.”
This is basically why people
think being outside is less
risky than being inside, and it
might be why the virus is better
at infecting people in enclosed
spaces. Given that some
significant percentage of
disease transmission is coming
from people who have no apparent
symptoms, it’s still unknown how
much virus the different sized
particles carry, and how much
virus it takes to infect
someone. But, given what
researchers have seen so far,
the disease models tend to
regard the number of people a
given person infects, the
reproductive number,
as a sort of average across an
entire population. But that
number actually varies by
individual and by context. Most
infected people don’t transmit
the disease to anyone else;
so-called super spreaders give
the disease to lots and lots of
others.
Jessica Metcalf, a demographer
who studies infectious disease
dynamics at
Princeton, estimates that 10
percent of cases might be
responsible for 80 percent of
transmission. Some people
apparently walk around in an
invisible Pigpen cloud of virus.
And some circumstances—crowded
rooms, sick people exuding more
virus, longer periods of
contact—make some situations
more likely to turn into “superspreading
events.”
The virus lives in the deep
lungs and has to get up and out
of the nose and throat for
transmission. Some researchers
looking into the Washington
choir cluster suggested that the
deep breaths and powerful
exhalations required for singing
carried more virus, making that
outbreak worse (even though it
turned out that the singers had
in fact gotten inside each
other’s social-distance force
fields). Ristenpart’s team at UC
Davis has found that simple
talking gives off 1 to 50
particles per second, with
louder talking corresponding to
higher numbers.
That might be due to something
called the “fluid-film burst
mechanism”; when you inhale, the
air-gathering sacs of the lungs,
the alveoli, expand and stretch
the thick fluid that lines them.
It pops and splashes a bit,
pinching off the tiny aerosol
particles. And that part of the
lungs is exactly where the virus
is more likely to live too. “The
physicists have accepted this,”
says Robin Wood, director of the
Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation in
Cape Town, South Africa and an
expert in the airborne
transmission of tuberculosis,
“whereas the physicians haven’t
really got to understand it.”
And some people give off more of
these “expiratory” particles
than others—by an order of
magnitude—no matter how loud
they talk or how deeply they
breathe. “A 10-minute
conversation with an infected,
asymptomatic super emitter
talking in a normal volume thus
would yield an invisible ‘cloud’
of approximately 6,000 aerosol
particles,” Ristenpart’s team
writes in a paper in Aerosol
Science and Technology.
They’ve even found that
some sounds emit more of these
expiratory particles than
others—pa-pa-pa (linguistically
a “plosive”) makes more than fa-fa-fa (a
“fricative”). All in all, it’s a
good argument for quiet-car
rules on trains and buses in the
Covid-19 era.
But it still takes context to
turn that individual variation
into a superspreading event. If
small expiratory particles are a
major factor, then a super
spreader’s kryptonite will be
ventilation. Work on the
airborne indoor transmission of
tuberculosis in the 1950s showed
that the outcome depended on the
number of people who were
infectious, their respiratory
rate, and how well the room was
ventilated. It’s that last
number that may provide another
angle of attack for public
health.
https://www.wired.com/story/to-beat-covid-19-you-have-to-know-how-a-virus-moves/
Individuals Release up to
180,000 Liquid Aerosols and
Billions of Particles per Hour
The average
individual breathes in
and exhales around 12 cubic feet
of air each hour. That air has a
maximum of 420 million particles
greater than or equal to 0.5
microns. That air also has 420
billion smaller particles.
This calculation is based
on
an average used in the
cleanroom classifications.
This assumes no particles
are retained in the lungs.
People also exhale as much as
180,000 liquid aerosols per
hour. This is a so called
splashing function in the lungs.
A mL of sputum might contain
upwards of 1 billion viral RNAs.
So there could be multiple
virions in a droplet or attached
to a particle. The minimum
infection rate could be as few
as 10 viral particles. Therefore
it would only take a tiny
fraction of the droplets or
particles emitted by an
individual to infect many
others.
In fact the numbers are so large
that an individual could be
generating enough virus to
infect a whole city. The
infection rate is kept low by
the fact that only an almost
insignificant percentage of the
virus particles travel to the
optimum locations and survive.
From the perspective of masks
and filters the question is not
whether they might be necessary
but whether they will be
efficient enough. Reshoring
Could be Temporary “If the U.S
government provides direct and
proper support and incentivizes
domestic manufacturers [of PPE],
I believe there will be some
reshoring of production,” Mark
Bonifacio told PlasticsToday.
“There will be at least a
short-term effort to address
reshoring and localization of
supply chains. In medtech as in
other industries, we have been
talking about this for at least
the last four years. There is a
need to manufacture the right
products in the ‘right’ places —
Asia for Asia, EU for EU, and
North America for North
America,” said Bonifacio. When
global conditions return to some
sense of normalcy, however,
“market forces will be back at
work in terms of availability,
labor, and material costs,” he
added. Bonifacio
heads Bonifacio Consulting
Services, which works with
medical device OEMs and contract
manufacturers. He readily
concedes that he has ties to a
Hong Kong business with
operations in China, which may
color his thinking, and is an
investor and board member of
several U.S. manufacturing
companies.
Bonifacio foresees some push
back against China and tougher
relations in the short term but
hopes that “countries take the
longer view that globalization
has already happened — the horse
has left the barn, so to speak.
Countries choosing to isolate
rather than collaborate on the
world’s toughest challenges
ahead will be a missed
opportunity for generations to
come,” said Bonifacio. Mondi will
Build Meltblown Line and Mask
Fabrication Facility for 1
Million Masks per Day Mondi is set
to build new production lines in
its plant in Gronau, Germany, to
produce meltblown nonwoven
fabric and surgical face masks.
This is part of Mondi's efforts
to mitigate the spread of
COVID-19 and respond to
increased demand by health
authorities, businesses and
consumers for face masks. Mondi Gronau
has a proven track record of
producing and handling films,
laminates, nonwovens and elastic
ear laminates for hygiene
products. This knowledge will be
applied to the entire value
chain of face mask production. “We are well
positioned for the increased
production of face masks and
meltblown nonwoven fabric in
Gronau. Our people have the
needed know-how and expertise on
working with these materials and
the technology required. The
in-house production capability
of all substantial components
positions us to build up a
long-term competitive local
supply. Once up and running, we
will be able to produce more
than one million face masks per
day.” said Jürgen Schneider,
Managing Director, Mondi
Personal Care Components (PCC). The
production lines will produce
meltblown nonwoven fabric and
surgical masks. Given the
shortage of melt blown fabric in
the marketplace, Mondi´s plant
in Gronau will offer
approximately 50% of its
production to other face mask
manufacturers in Europe.
Berry Building 400 tpy Meltblown
Facility in South America
Berry announced the capital
investment in its global
meltblown nonwoven fabric
capacity for South America. This
investment further strengthens
the Company’s global reach and
position as the leading
nonwovens manufacturer. This
line is Berry’s first meltblown
asset, based on its Meltex™
technology, to be located in
South America and continues to
support the demand for health
and wellness products.
“We are pleased to present this
state-of-the-art meltblown
capacity to the South American
market. As customers prepare for
future outbreaks or protection
demands, we will be ready to
serve”
said Daniel Guerrero, EVP & GM
for Latin America in Health,
Hygiene, and Specialties at
Berry.
With continued demand for face
masks
globally, Berry has been working
closely with customers to help
ensure production and supply.
The investment will bring more
than 400 metric tons of Meltex™
meltblown nonwoven material to
the region, which will enable
production of more than 500
million surgical-grade masks per
year.
The new asset will be
operational in the March 2021
quarter, will be placed at an
existing Berry production
facility in South America, and
will focus on the production of
materials for ASTM L2, L3, and
N95 masks. The new line will be
upgraded with Berry’s patented
charging technology post
installation.
Gulsan Group is Adding a
3.2-Meter Meltblown Line in
Turkey
The line, which is being
supplied by Reicofil, will begin
commercial production in
November 2020. It will make
enough material for 250 million
face masks per month.
Borealis Producing Meltblowns
for Face Masks
Borealis has started production
of meltblown fabrics for face
mask applications on its unique
pilot line in Linz, Austria.
Borealis has managed quickly to
convert the way of working from
pure development to smaller
scale pilot production to
regularly produce rolls of fine
fibre fabrics for face masks.
Recently developed by Borealis,
a new proprietary polypropylene
(PP) meltblown resin has boosted
filtration properties due to its
capability for finer fibres. By
exploiting a robust network of
co-operation partners in the
country, Borealis is helping
bolster the supply of filtration
media to increase face masks
production.
The well-known Borealis
meltblown resins HL708FB and
HL712FB are reference grades for
filtration. Recently, a new
resin Borealis HL912FB was
introduced to the market, which
can be processed at higher
processing temperatures allowing
the production of even finer
fibres. According to in-house
testing, the use of Borealis
HL912FB results in a significant
improvement in filtration
efficiency. All three grades are
manufactured at Borealis
facilities in Europe and made
available to customers
worldwide.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has led
to a sudden steep increase in
the need for PPE, while supply
chains are being disrupted
around the globe. We would like
to assure our partners that we
remain the reliable supplier of
advanced polymers for the
manufacture of high-quality face
masks and other PPE,” says
Lucrèce Foufopoulos, Borealis
Executive Vice President
Polyolefins, Innovation and
Circular Economy Solutions.
“True to our company purpose,
‘Life demands progress – we are
re-inventing for more
sustainable living’, we are
offering innovative solutions
like Borealis HL912FB and are
re-purposing our own pilot
facilities to a small-scale
production line for meltblown
fabrics. We have capitalized on
our close collaboration with
governments, NGOs and value
chain partners to optimally
deploy our innovation and
manufacturing capabilities at
the service of society.”
Neenah Expanded Melt Blown
Capacity in Germany and is
Repurposing Other Machines
Neenah Filtration has expanded
its meltblown capacity to better
meet demand for face mask
materials at its
Feldkirchen-Westerham, Germany
production site. Neenah
Filtration is continuously
increasing the production of
filter media for surgical masks
according to the BFE standard as
well as FFP1, FFP2, FFP3 and P3
masks based on meltblown
nonwovens.
In
addition, Neenah Filtration is
converting other media
production machines needed to
combat the COVID 19 pandemic.
These machines will make
materials for face masks used by
civilians to protect against the
spread of the virus. Benefits of
the material are the prevention
of droplet infection, excellent
strength properties and the
possibility of a combination
with different materials. It can
also be used as one layer.
South Texas Health Systems
Purchases Eighteen Room
Purifiers and Four H2O2 Systems
South Texas Health Systems
recently acquired technology
designed to filter its air and
disinfect surfaces in its
hospitals — action taken to ease
any public health anxieties
surrounding the COVID-19
pandemic.
The new tech includes a rapid
UVC disinfector, 18 Amaircare
filters and four dry hydrogen
peroxide generators.
Since late April, after Gov.
Greg Abbott lifted restrictions
on elective medical procedures
across the state, STHS COO Matt
Malinak said patient volume has
slowly gone back to normal — but
the low flow of patients is
still alarming.
“We have seen a significant
drop-off in volume,” he said.
“It’s been noticeable to the
point where we know that
patients are not receiving the
care that they need because
they’re scared to go to the
emergency room. The ultimate
goal post-COVID, or as we get to
be comfortable with the new norm
of COVID, is trying to catch up
with that demand that’s been
backlogged for six to eight
weeks now.”
On
top of several sanitation
protocols that have already been
implemented, STHS hospitals have
recently acquired several new
disinfecting machines, one being
a rapid UVC (ultraviolet light)
disinfector.
“After we are done cleaning a
room, there might be spots under
the chair, or maybe a spot on a
wheel that we may not have fully
been able to get to,” Malinak
said. “What this will do is seek
out those areas and it will zap
everything in the room… it goes
after the DNA of microbes and
blows them up.”
The
machine can sanitize a room in
about 15 minutes and will be
used to clean all rooms of the
hospital, including operating
rooms and patient rooms.
Then, working to clean the
hospital’s air are a couple of
machines: Amaircare filters, and
dry hydrogen peroxide
generators.
The
Amaircare machines, Malinak
explained, are considered
high-efficiency particulate air
filters, or HEPA filters, which
process air and rid it of
harmful particles.
“All this does is take air in
and recycle it, and it uses a
HEPA filter that’s in it to
catch those microbes,” he said.
“Then the air it pushes back out
is clean.”
The
small machines will be placed
all around the hospital,
including waiting areas and
patient rooms.
While Amaircare machines filter
air, dry hydrogen peroxide (DHP)
generators continuously release
disinfecting gas, which is safe
for public areas.
“This gas is safe for everyone,
that way, we can continuously
disinfect rooms without having
to clear people out to use the
robot (the rapid UVC
disinfector),” Malinak said.
In
addition to the work of both of
these machines, Maliak explained
that the larger air conditioning
system of the building is
already built as a HEPA filter.
Sitting on top of the STHS’s
Edinburg Children’s Hospital,
for instance, is a large air
filtering machine with UVC light
bulbs inside.
All
of the air in the hospitals run
through a similar machine, which
then purifies the air and sends
it back inside, much like the
way lungs work.
The
last piece of new equipment is
not as high-tech but is just as
important: disinfecting mats.
“Everyone wears their shoes in
the hospital, and a lot of them
wear them at home. We walk in
and out of patient rooms all the
time,” Malinak said.
The
black mats have protruding teeth
and will have disinfecting
solution poured over them. So,
when someone is standing on it
and wiggles a little, their
shoes will be scrubbed clean.
Other measures that STHS has
taken is providing staff members
in COVID-19, as well as labor
and delivery departments, with
scrubs to change into while
working. |