A new carbon-based material able to ‘capture and destroy’ coronavirus has been developed.
The project having been driven by UK based Q-Flo, and Israeli company, Tortech Nano Fibers, with input from the University of Cambridge’s Departments of Engineering, Materials Science, and Pathology.
‘Unlike PPE’, TorStran is ‘designed to mitigate the risk for everyone’, by reducing contamination levels in critical areas and spaces, and can be used in emergency vehicles such as ambulances, in hospital waiting areas and wards, on public transport, ‘and in many other areas’. The developers explain that the technology can be incorporated into existing filter or air-conditioning systems, and filtration equipment such as that already used for PPE. They say: “It provides a solution to keep the air virusfree. Tests have proven that the technology works, and is ready to be launched with potential partners across the UK.”
A team comprising leading scientists and engineers from Cambridge and Israel have collaborated over the last few weeks and created the TorStran Active Virus Filter system in the form of a thin mat ‘with the correct filtration and permeability properties to allow it to capture virus molecules contained in airborne aerosolised droplets’. They add: “The filter completely disrupts the virus molecules, rendering them safe and inert. Both filtration and disruption take place simultaneously, allowing the filter to reduce infection risk by removing contamination from the air. The active filter can be self-cleaning and reused many times. We envisage it being particularly useful in confined situations such as emergency vehicles, waiting areas, and wards.”
