Innovative Cold Packs to Minimize Heat Stress for Wearing Personal Protective Equipment in a Health Care Environment (BeCool Pack)

NHS staff, health and care workers have been working hard to save patients' lives suffering from the COVID-19\. These front-line workers are required to wear, for very long periods, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as masks, aprons and gloves to protect themselves to prevent exposure to virus-carrying droplets or aerosols from infected patients. However, they suffer heat stress and thermal discomfort while prolonged wearing PPE in high-risk enclosed and crowded working environments. Surveys were conducted to report issues with wearing PPE that medical staff experienced, most (82%) said sweat and irritation (73%) presented major challenges, limited use and thus effectiveness. Due to the fabric thermal proprieties of PPE suits and working environments, heat exchange between the body and the environment can be significantly limited or impeded, thus result in heat stress, a decrement in physical performance capabilities and increased risk of heat-stress-related injuries. As the main symptoms of COVID-19 are a high temperature and continuous cough, patient cohorts experience fever, dehydration, and thermal discomfort, this is especially problematic in elderly people with coronavirus in care homes. Moreover, the transportation of COVID-19 patients with high temperatures over long distances can cause heat stress as ambulances are rarely equipped with effective cooling or ventilation systems.

Therefore, it is urgent to provide measures to address the above-mentioned heat stress issues, thus provide better thermal comfort and protection. Cool packs could be an option to lower the body's temperature thus to avoid the risk of heat stress. However, several types of cold packs on the market using phase change materials (PCM), namely ice packs and chemical reactions with slat/fibrous sheet materials. They are not compact to integrated PPE, difficult to operate, rigid/uncomfortable, short cooling time, expensive, poor heat transfer/long freezing time and do not conform to the body of the users. In this project, innovative cooling 'BeCool Packs' is proposed which use a multi-cell bio-polymer structure that contains endothermic composite particles such as urea/ammonium chloride separated from cells that contain water. The cooling is achieved by breaking the seal between the particles and water using hand pressure. As the particles dissolve in the water, heat is absorbed, and a cooling effect is generated. The cooling temperature can be controlled by the user depending on the demand. BeCool Pack can also be made as fast freezing ice packs by placing in a freezer for reuse. The simple and flexible BeCool Pack can be produced in a range of sizes and configurations so that they are appropriate to a range of applications and anatomical placements, such as placed at the back of the neck for body cooling or as a cooling blanket to lower the body temperature for emergency medical settings. BeCool Pack uses safe, non-toxic, degradable materials, which are not harmful to human and the environment in the disposal. BeCool Pack will be designed to reduce user's heat stress and minimal thermal discomfort. Furthermore, BeCool Pack allows local rapid mass manufacture/production to meet the urgent demand to protect health workers and others from heat stress.