Public Funding for Metasonixx Ltd

Intensive Care Units are noisy places, with alarms and machinery buzzing all around. With Covid-19, they will become frightfully noisier: 10 commercial oxygen concentrators or ventilators are sufficient to create the noisy equivalent of a motorway in a hospital ward. Considering that some of the ventilators built in converted factories are even noisier, imagine how noisy will be the London Excel Centre turned into Nightingale hospital! While the priority is to save patient lives, this noise may be considered to be unimportant. After all, we are at war with Covid-19. Still, noise in ICUs is proven to impact on the recovery time of patients and on the concentration and mental health of medical staff. Some of the NHS heroes that now work in first-line may even need treatment afterwards, like war veterans. We felt that improving this situation could be our small contribution to the war that is keeping us all isolated. Therefore, in this project, we will study the feasibility of a solution to manage noise in ICUs, based on acoustic metamaterials. This is an innovative engineering and design approach, which allows normal materials to acquire properties not otherwise existent in nature. Metasonixx is a leader in transforming normal materials, like plastic or wood or metal, into acoustic metamaterials, which manipulate sound impacting on them. Our know-how is protected by 4 patents and underpinned by research in two UK universities, Sussex and Bristol. In the first part of the project, we will design different types of screens that can be put up as necessary and can selectively cancel unwanted noise, letting through specific sounds (e.g. patient alarms) and air if desired. In the spirit of user-centred design, we will work closely with ICU staff, to ensure that our products are tailored to real needs. We expect our screens to be lighter and thinner than classical sound-absorbing panels, but as effective as very thick plywood in blocking unwanted noise. Also in the first part of the project, supported by experienced commercials, our engineers will detail practical routes for mass-production of our prototypes. Metasonixx will establish contact with strategic partners to accelerate hospital uptake and run an initial exploration of beneficial applications in other sectors of our society (e.g. automotive, building environment). All this information will underpin an initial exploitation plan. In the Extension of the project, we will (a) produce more 3D-printed samples, for beta testing in other hospitals; (b) adapt our metamaterial screens to structures already in ICUs (e.g. privacy curtains), to speed-up integration with existing environments and procedures; (c) investigate a business model that covers applications also beyond hospitals (e.g. air conditioning, open offices); (d) protect IP where needed. We expect a positive impact on the wellbeing of staff and patients in ICUs shortly after the end of the project and beyond the current pandemic, as our technology will be adaptable to other noise sources.