... how Butler Technologies is using its copper innovations to fight the coronavirus
Butler Technologies had its moment in the spotlight during the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. When the U.S. team walked out of the tunnel during the opening ceremony, they were wearing electronically heated jackets developed at the Butler plant.
While the company’s bread and butter continues to be designing and manufacturing user interface products and printed electronics, it was able to pivot during the pandemic and come up with a new product for what could be the new normal.
Using their experience in print technology, the company’s engineers invented a copper-based adhesive wrap that can be stuck on high-touch surfaces — think door handles and gym equipment — that kills 90% of the coronavirus on contact and 99% within an hour or two. It’s called Defender29.
James Orlando, director of marketing and sales at the second-generation family-owned company, said copper is proven to have natural, microbial properties that kill bacteria within minutes, including viruses such as the coronavirus.
(This interview has been edited for space and clarity.)
Butler Technologies recently rolled out an adhesive strip called Defender29 that kills the coronavirus on surfaces without cleaning. Where did the idea for a product like that come from?
We work with a conductive ink that contains silver particles, so a lot of what we do is working with silver
traces and silver inks. So, in partnering with another company last year, they wanted to develop face masks that had copper infusion printed on the underside of it to help battle with the coronavirus.
So we had the idea that we could apply this to some
of our own products and labeling and wraps that would help high-touch areas. Our formulation contains copper flakes and some proprietary inks that we use. We mixed it here, printed samples and then we sent this off for testing last September to an independent
laboratory that tested it against coronavirus.
The results came back that it was a 90% kill on contact and after two hours, it was 99.9% killed. So, if you didn’t have those copper surfaces in place, viruses could live on those types of
pore surfaces for days. It could be on there 24 to 48 hours, and sometimes even longer.
How is Defender29 being used now?
We went and did a study on all the different surfaces people would be touching in typical retail — like push plates, pull handles, panic bars, railings and doors. So we took measurements and custom engineered the shapes to fit. We applied for and were granted the provisional design patents on the shapes that we created.
Where is it being used now?
We recently worked with the Baierl Family YMCA in Wexford with outfitting their facility. We worked with the YMCA because, again, that’s a high-touch area with people coming in and out. We went down there and outfitted the front doors, their handicap plates and the locker room doors.
What are Butler Technologies’ bestselling products?
Our bread and butter is on the user interface side. That would be labeling and controls for medical devices or industrial controls. One of the key products that we have been working on for the past few years is ... a push button interface for the Phillips Respironics Evo Ventilators. So when their demand went up last year due to the pandemic, we were one of the suppliers to Phillips. So that was one of our main products last year.
What do you find most fulfilling about your job?
I’m an analytical person. I have two engineering degrees — mechanical and plastics. But I also have a creative side. It’s fun working on new technologies that nobody has ever done before. We are always designing something here, and it’s fun being creative and thinking through new solutions with customers.