64623One-Piece Adjustable, Reusable, Washable, Biodegradeable, Face-Shield Visor Head BandsClosedFeasibility StudiesInnovate UKOne piece reusable visor head bands responding to the COVID-19 PPE shortages not just for clinical and care staff but wider adoption by transport, retail, and the general public. This project will scale up an efficient design currently made using 3D printing, to more practical commercial volumes with injection moulding in the UK. This new design avoids extra components such as absorbent materials, making it possible to sanitise and reuse. It will be made with bio-degradeable materials to minimise the environmental impact of PPE. These combined strategies mean the visor band can be reused multiple times and be disposed of responsibly, saving the cost of many disposable visors and the waste they'd cause. This project will not only create the tooling but manufacture a target an initial batch of 50,000 visor bands. The Extension for Impact will allow us to do 4 things: 1. Work with a specific UK Biopolymer supplier to convert high clarity PLA to the thickness required for face visor shields. PLA film is commonly available for packaging only in 20-50micron thickness. We require 150-200+ micron film for an effective and stable visor shield. Converting this film into consumable visor sheets will give us a complete product and 100% bio-degradeable faceshield made from one material with a common end-of-life strategy, as well as creating stock in the EU that has other applications in replacing plastics. 2. Testing of our existing Biopolymer Visor Headband and new visor sheets against relevant standards for compostability and PPE safety. 3. Apply for a patent and design registrations for our Phase 1 work. 4. Fund our ongoing development work and support our work to exploit the results of Phase 1 including arrangements to distribute PPE. (In phase 1 our budget was 92% allocated to tooling and manufacturing PPE not our labour.)