Novel nanocellulosic composites as antivirals and antimicrobials for new PPE materials (NanocellPPE)

Due to emergent pandemic threats the global use of personal protection equipment (PPE) has hugely increased (in particular face masks). Most of this PPE is single use, contains plastics, is not easily recyclable and generally is disposed of via landfill or discarded into the environment. It is estimated that if each person in the UK uses a single disposable mask each day for a year this would result in 66, 000 tonnes of contaminated plastic waste (which would be a reservoir of infection) and have ten-fold more of a climate change impact than reusable masks. Interestingly, most of these materials are prone to "wetting out" and are poorly absorbant which raises transmission risks, and moreover they lack the requisite antiviral/antibacterial activities required for robust protection. There are however very few antiviral PPE technologies readily available in the public domain and those that are suffer from complex manufacturing methods, high expense, poor reusability, poor washability and rapidly lose their antiviral activities. There is now a pressing need to develop completely new PPE materials which confer safety and comfort by being highly absorbant, breathable and can actively sequester viruses and kill them and have potent antimicrobial activity. It is also crucial that these PPE materials are made from existing waste streams, be multiuse, re-washable, compostible, recyclable and cheap; reducing the huge environmental burden and supporting the emergent bioeconomy for new products. This project will produce novel PPE materials (in particular face masks) which satisfies all these criteria and address a major market and environmental weakness.

This project will produce unrivalled novel ISO validated multiuse, washable, environmentally friendly PPE materials which have potent antiviral activities, while also considering antibacterial properties since warm and moist PPE masks may support bacteria. This work builds on our existing publications and patent portfolios with industry partners and also helps drive our novel products to the face mask market and beyond, while also enabling us to identify interesting antiviral/antibacterial properties which will later be investigated to unpick new potential pathogen control mechanisms.