For assured mask quality
Empa researchers have developed technologies and quality standards for textile masks in collaboration with the Swiss textile industry. As a result, community masks can now be produced in Switzerland.
In order to provide Switzerland in the Corona crisis with effective Protective material In recent weeks, Empa researchers have been working intensively with the textile industry and other partners on technologies and quality standards for community masks. On behalf of the federal government's "National COVID-19 Science Task Force", precise specifications for textile masks are now available in the "ReMask" project, which are intended to minimize the risk of coronavirus spread.
For example, the "Masks" expert group of the Science Task Force had recently made recommendations regarding the quality requirements for community masks. Based on these recommendations, Empa has investigated such community masks during the current crisis situation up to now. "Within a very short time, we have developed and implemented the necessary technologies and procedures in the Empa laboratories," explains René Rossi from the "Biomimetic Membranes and Textiles" laboratory in St. Gallen. To avoid having to use dangerous viruses for these experiments, the researchers used artificially dyed saliva to monitor what was happening on the inside and outside of a Mask in the sense of a droplet infection. "With the apparatus developed, the simulations could be optimally achieved," says Rossi.
More info
