Researchers Rush To Create Self-Sanitizing Face Masks To Reduce Spread Of Coronavirus

There are over 600,000 cases of confirmed COVID-19 in the world, with 1 in 6 of those currently in the U.S. Healthcare providers across the country have reported grave shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks, gowns and face shields and are asking President Trump to immediately invoke the defense act to force production of these vital items.

Now a team of scientists are trying to design a coating for masks to kill the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus in respiratory droplets released by infected people, with the hope of further reducing the risk to healthcare workers treating them.

“Spread of infectious respiratory diseases, such as COVID-19, typically starts when an infected person releases virus-laden respiratory droplets through coughing or sneezing,” said Jiaxing Huang, leader of the research and a professor of materials science in the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois. “To further slow and even prevent the virus from spreading, we need to greatly reduce the number and activity of the viruses in those just released respiratory droplets,” he added.

Although doctors are partly protected by wearing properly fitted PPE, shortages loom and the virus has been shown to persist for several days on surfaces, meaning that any reduction in exposure to viruses coming from patients would likely further reduce the risk to healthcare workers interacting with them.

“We want these antiviral molecules to get into the droplets released by patients during exhalation or coughing, so that virus particles can be deactivated. If this works, it should make patients less infectious and help to cut down the source of spread,” said Huang.

The coronavirus is easily inactivated by every day items such as soap, household cleaners and alcohol, but these are unlikely to be practical for embedding into protective masks.

“These [items] are very good at destroying almost all viruses, which is why it is recommended so highly to regularly wash your hands,” said Dr Samuel Jones, group leader in the department of materials at the University of Manchester in the U.K. “The problem is that it is not easy to incorporate these into masks as they would be easily removed (leach out) and/or cause damage to the person wearing the mask,” he added.

The team are not trying to re-engineer the masks themselves, which would undoubtedly be a more complex project and take longer to develop and get approved for use. Rather, they are trying to design some type of sticker which can be wrapped onto or glued to the outside of existing masks.

“Our main idea is to make an accessory loaded with well-known antiviral chemicals, such as acids and metal ions like copper that can be stuck onto existing masks. To keep costs to a minimum, we want this to be a drop-in solution that would not disrupt current manufacturing,” said Huang.

However a big challenge for the team is to make sure that anything they do add to the masks can’t be released from the material when the person wearing the mask inhales, only when they exhale potentially infected droplets. Huang’s team are currently artificially modelling this in the lab.

“Both silver and copper would likely act as antivirals and there are previous examples of them being incorporated into textiles. They are trapped within the fibers matrix and so when wet/washed they leach out so they would only be effective for short periods. This is obviously not an issue is the mask is disposable or short term/one time use but would be for repeat usage,” said Jones.

Of course any coating will have to be eventually tested with the coronavirus to check that it is likely to work when patients wear the mask and new coating.

“One thing to try to understand would be how are they going to prove that the virus is destroyed and not just stuck to the mask. This is a subtle, but important difference. Viruses that are just trapped (intact) could potentially be released and go on to infect someone else. If the viruses is destroyed when it touches the mask then it cannot infect someone else but practically proving the difference in the lab is not trivial,” said Jones.

Huang’s lab focuses on material engineering does not have the capability to handle viruses but he hopes to eventually collaborate with virology experts who can help them test the masks with SARS-CoV2 and figure out whether they are likely to help curb the spread of the virus from infected patients.