PPE initiative demonstrates power of collective

University engineers throughout SA are collaborating with doctors, healthcare workers and business to address critical Covid-19-related personal protective equipment (PPE) and hospital equipment shortages.

Innovation hubs within the engineering faculties are custom-designing face shields, reusable face masks with disposable filters, ventilators and intubation units.

They are also producing sanitisers for hospitals, frontline health workers and communities.

A plastic, medical face mask that can be washed and reused multiple times is being developed for SA as an alternative to the N95 face mask, which must be disposed of after each patient interaction.

In the new plastic mask only the filters are disposed of. N95-rated material is also becoming more challenging to secure from the US and Asia as global demand spikes.

The reusable face mask project is a collaboration between the Product Development Technology Station) of the Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein (project leader), the University of the Free State, Nelson Mandela University’s engineering innovation hub eNtsa, and the University of Cape Town (UCT).

The CUT developed the plastic face mask and worked with eNtsa to find suitable filtering materials in SA for the mask, as well as for non-invasive ventilators. UCT is currently testing the mask and filters.

“We need to comply with all the medical specifications, hence the face mask and filtration project moved from an intervention project to a research project with input from doctors working in our hospitals, and subject to approval by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority,” eNtsa director Prof Danie Hattingh says.

To address the shortage of ventilators, a consortium of business, industry and university engineers formed the South African Emergency Ventilator Project, led by businessman Justin Corbett.

He is collaborating with engineering Prof Carlo van Zyl at Walter Sisulu University and eNtsa’s Dr Ian Wedderburn on reverse-engineering some of the components from the Nuffield 200 ventilator.

Van Zyl says it’s a very effective, older mechanical invasive ventilator design and manufacturing should be more costeffective because of its simplicity. “At the same time it needs to meet all the South African regulations for medical devices.”

The Nuffield 200 is robust and can be used in existing and field hospitals anywhere as it does not need electricity and contains no electronics, though this adds to the design and engineering challenges, he says.

It is hoped that the first ventilators will be manufactured in SA by the end of May.

Another vital piece of hospital equipment an intubation/extubation unit was requested by anaesthetist Dr Lorenzo Boretti at Livingstone Hospital in Port Elizabeth.

This problem was tackled

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– by a group of engineering students and academics from the department of mechanical engineering at Nelson Mandela University, who have designed and manufactured a prototype unit.

eNtsa engineers are now working on a longer-term project where they are evaluating the use of an automatic guided robot with UV lighting to continuously run through the designated Covid-19 areas, in commercial and medical spaces, for decontamination and sterilisation purposes.

To address the dire shortage of face shields, engineering faculties throughout the country are hard at work producing thousands of laser-cut and 3D printed face shields for healthcare and front-line workers.

“We optimised the design to meet the requirements communicated to us by ICU doctors, and produced face shields using 3D printing; they are clipless and use A4 clear acetate sheets that are quick and easy to replace,” eNtsa senior engineer Riaan Opperman says.

eNtsa collaborated with Provolution, a Port Elizabeth start-up that uses 3D printing, to increase capacity and further optimise the design.

When they still could not meet the growing demand, they made the face shield design freely available for download.

Members of the Eastern Cape 3D printing community were invited to collaborate, and 40 responded.

With eNtsa co-ordinating, in April they distributed over 3,500 face shields to Eastern Cape front-line medical and security staff.

It costs R31 to produce one shield. As far as possible, face shields are distributed at no cost to the public sector, through the support of government and private entities.

Industry and the private sector can purchase them at cost price.

The Mandela Bay Development Association (MBDA) has provided funding for an additional 4,000 face shields and additional printers.

The Technology Innovation Agency, an initiative of the department of science and innovation, has funded the engineering hours via the Technology Station Programme.

Corporates are also encouraged to purchase face shields for R100 each to help fund the production of additional donated shields.

Dugmore is a journalist and specialist writer in higher education