Public Funding for KMD Company Limited

NHS staff, health and care workers have been working hard to save patients' lives suffering from the COVID-19\. These front-line workers are required to wear, for very long periods, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as masks, aprons and gloves to protect themselves to prevent exposure to virus-carrying droplets or aerosols from infected patients. However, they suffer heat stress and thermal discomfort while prolonged wearing PPE in high-risk enclosed and crowded working environments. Surveys were conducted to report issues with wearing PPE that medical staff experienced, most (82%) said sweat and irritation (73%) presented major challenges, limited use and thus effectiveness. Due to the fabric thermal proprieties of PPE suits and working environments, heat exchange between the body and the environment can be significantly limited or impeded, thus result in heat stress, a decrement in physical performance capabilities and increased risk of heat-stress-related injuries. As the main symptoms of COVID-19 are a high temperature and continuous cough, patient cohorts experience fever, dehydration, and thermal discomfort, this is especially problematic in elderly people with coronavirus in care homes. Moreover, the transportation of COVID-19 patients with high temperatures over long distances can cause heat stress as ambulances are rarely equipped with effective cooling or ventilation systems. Therefore, it is urgent to provide measures to address the above-mentioned heat stress issues, thus provide better thermal comfort and protection. Cool packs could be an option to lower the body's temperature thus to avoid the risk of heat stress. However, several types of cold packs on the market using phase change materials (PCM), namely ice packs and chemical reactions with slat/fibrous sheet materials. They are not compact to integrated PPE, difficult to operate, rigid/uncomfortable, short cooling time, expensive, poor heat transfer/long freezing time and do not conform to the body of the users. In this project, innovative cooling 'BeCool Packs' is proposed which use a multi-cell bio-polymer structure that contains endothermic composite particles such as urea/ammonium chloride separated from cells that contain water. The cooling is achieved by breaking the seal between the particles and water using hand pressure. As the particles dissolve in the water, heat is absorbed, and a cooling effect is generated. The cooling temperature can be controlled by the user depending on the demand. BeCool Pack can also be made as fast freezing ice packs by placing in a freezer for reuse. The simple and flexible BeCool Pack can be produced in a range of sizes and configurations so that they are appropriate to a range of applications and anatomical placements, such as placed at the back of the neck for body cooling or as a cooling blanket to lower the body temperature for emergency medical settings. BeCool Pack uses safe, non-toxic, degradable materials, which are not harmful to human and the environment in the disposal. BeCool Pack will be designed to reduce user's heat stress and minimal thermal discomfort. Furthermore, BeCool Pack allows local rapid mass manufacture/production to meet the urgent demand to protect health workers and others from heat stress.

Transmission of COVID-19 occurs through direct, indirect, or close contact with infected people through infected secretions or their respiratory droplets. This can be limited with face masks. Face coverings are now recommended where appropriate social distancing could be difficult to maintain. The protection of frontline health workers is paramount and personal protective equipment (PPE) must be prioritized. However, large numbers of healthcare workers have been infected or lost their lives in spite of using PPEs. Moreover, there is a global shortage of PPE for medical settings, including face masks. Commonly used disposable medical surgical mask and FFP3/N95 mask provide some protection against COVID-19 but are not very effective in high virus concentrations and need to be replaced after each use to avoid contamination. To address the scarcity of face mask, different approaches have been conceived to disinfect, clean, and sterilise the disposal masks. Since a mask can contain respiratory secretions on both the inside and outside, it is important to effectively decontaminate the mask before reusing it. There are processes in hospitals for cleaning masks, but typically they are time-consuming, involving different types of gases and special machines. Disposable masks are made from non-woven fabrics; FFP3/N95 masks cannot be safely cleaned for reuse since exposure to excessive amounts of water and cleaning products destroys the fibres and damages the carbon filtration systems. Optimum practices for effectively decontaminating masks are still being researched, yet preliminary evidence finds traces of the coronavirus persisted for considerable time on masks, which indicates that continuous sterilisation of face masks is essential for better protection, especially for healthcare facilities. In this project, a self-sterilising desiccant mask, 'SterilMask' is proposed, which uses highly efficient desiccant material (salts) for continuous sterilisation without damaging the mask's filtration capability and breathability. Instead of using disinfecting materials or additional equipment/tools, SterilMask provides self-sterilisation properties to efficiently decontaminate the mask where the desiccant material kills/deactivates viruses on the mask skin and in the inhaled air. The desiccant material can be encapsulated with porous membrane fabrics to form into a mask. Alternatively, a desiccant sheet made of an impregnated desiccant material onto a membrane sheet layered with a fabric sheet can be used as a mask. Another option is to use the membrane sheet as a cover for SterilMask made from recyclable plastics. The desiccant can humidify inhaled air passing into the nose and sinus cavities, reducing the moisture level/minimising condensation, providing better comfort for wearers. SterilMask can provide long-lasting sterilisation effect. Furthermore, regeneration of the desiccant material/sheet is not needed because the difference in the humidity levels between the inhaled and exhaled air could contribute to the self-balanced performance. An additional filter can be incorporated to SterilMask to enhance breathability, and provide improved comfort for long-period wearers, such as healthcare workers and factory workers. The advanced and affordable SterilMask will provide safety and enhanced breathing experience, and durability, recyclability, and reusability features. The use of SterilMask would significantly reduce the waste of millions of disposed single-use masks.