N95 face mask

A team of researchers led by Profs J.Ramkumar & Tarun Gupta and alumnus Sandip Patil are working on a protective face mask which is equivalent to N95 face mask for the front line medical staff and common man fighting against COVID-19.

The primary goal is to test various available filter media and develop a low-cost protective respirator which is equivalent or even better than N95. We have to quickly set up a filter testing rig equipped with an aerosol laser spectrometer and identify a non-woven polypropylene based 3-4 layer material as the likely candidate to make such mask. Its efficiency must be equal to N95 and it offers much lower resistance to the air passage.

Scalability:After identifying the appropriate material the mask will be made manual because the ultrasonic welding machine and automatic manufacturing machines are also a bottleneck at this lock down period. We will identity few profession stitches who have prior experience in textile and mask fabrication. Initially for few days we would be able to manufacturing 500 piece/day. Slowly we will ramp up the production to 2000/day.