CoNaSPro3D – 3D Printed Covid-19 Nasopharyngeal Swabs Post-Processing System

Covid-19 has brought disruption to economic and social life in the UK and rest of the world. Widescale testing of millions of people will be required to safely reopen the economy and continuous testing will be needed long after that. This has created an unprecedented demand for Covid-19 diagnostics items, among which Nasopharyngeal Swabs are the most widely used.

Widescale usage of Nasopharyngeal Swabs has resulted in unprecedented demand in their manufacturing systems, especially in new generation, sustainable and Industry 4.0 compatible technologies. That is why industry has been trying to adapt 3D printing for the manufacture of required medical articles at scale, including functional specialised items such as Nasopharyngeal Swabs, ventilator splitters, masks etc.

3D printing offers the capability to rapidly yet sustainably create the necessary medical articles locally within the UK. This ability is of strategic national importance, especially in the times of crisis and shortage of vital components as seen during Covid-19 epidemic. In many cases it is more convenient, sustainable, and environmentally friendly to 3D print parts at the point of use rather than keep large stockpiles manufactured overseas. Nationwide, there are many 3D printing systems both in commercial and academic capacity and ability to utilise this resource at full capacity would help UK economy to grow during and after Covid-19 pandemic.

Additive Manufacturing Technologies has developed a method to post-process 3D printed Nasopharyngeal Swabs at scale using its smoothing machine PostPro3D. Innovate UK grant would allow AMT to fund the remaining R&D required to deploy this technology commercially.

Project will allow AMT to enter 3D printed Nasopharyngeal Swabs and 3D printing Healthcare markets. The work will be done at the AMT's facilities in Sheffield and several UK laboratories that are able to operate under Covid-19 working restrictions.