Better Face Masks Are Possible: Here Are Some Winning Designs

Strong protection against the spread of COVID-19 is offered by high-quality masks. There is room for improvement in terms of comfort and convenience. There is fog up glasses It can get sweaty and uncomfortable to wear them for long periods of time. Some brands have better efficacy than others. It's harder to read facial expressions when people cover their face.

The 10 finalist in the high-prize competition for the mask innovation challenge were announced this week, with the goal of connecting these groups with one another.

The challenge manager of the project said they wanted to help support innovation in order to protect the American public from public health emergencies of the future. We wanted to create something that was comfortable, that you could wear for a long time, and that was based on evidence so that people would understand what they were wearing and why they were wearing it.

The Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe) is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services. More than 1,500 submissions were received after the competition was launched. Lippold's team and some experts were recruited to help winnow them down to 40 finalist and 10 winners. The entry had to seem like it would work in the real world. It needs to be innovative. It had to address issues that cause people to change their masks frequently. It had to have a design that made people want to wear it.

Many of the winning designs were different. Most came from start-ups and some came from universities. The innovation was found in new materials. The metal foams used in Georgetown University's entry are light and airy. The BreSafe transparent mask was created by 4C Air. Others used new fabrication and fitting methods. Air Flo Labs uses three-dimensional facial scans to ensure its Flo mask Pro is tailored to a wearer's face, while jeans maker Levi Strauss developed a low-cost respirator design. Some entries were able to break through by rethinking their designs. The Airgami mask from start-up Air99 is made with folds that spread the filter over a larger surface area to make it easier to breathe through.

They were not done. It would take a few months to design a new structure for Phase 2 after this initial set of winners. We didn't want Phase 2 to be the same as Phase 1 Lippold said they wanted to create something that would meet the needs of innovators. We engaged with the general public and small businesses in order to understand what they needed.

The performance criteria were higher this time around, and the winners of Phase 1 were able to reapply, but so could new entrants. Lippold says that it was structured in a way that pushed the innovators to achieve very revolutionary changes. We weren't looking for improvement. We were looking for things that would make a difference. The DRIVe team collaborated with two government organizations, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to conduct laboratory tests on the entries.

The results were given to the competitors so they could improve their designs. Matthew Staymates is a mechanical engineer and fluid dynamicist at NIST. Staymates focused on more qualitative measures than NIOSH did, such as measuring the percentage of particles that can force their way through the material. He recorded himself breathing, speaking and coughing while wearing a prototype of a challenge participant's prototype.

Staymates recorded him with a camera that could detect the hot air in an exhale and show how much of a mask was being used to keep him from breathing. He tested the masks on mannequins that emit fog instead of transparent air, and he was not the only one. Staymates said that it was an easy to understand visual that confirmed what the NIOSH data was showing. These masks were great. Almost all of the droplets coming out of the mannequin are blocked by them.

The 10 semifinalists for Phase 2 have been named. Five of the 10 winners made the short list. Three of the new finalist designs are transparent or semi- transparent. The ReadiMask is a strap-free mask that sticks to the wearer's face and avoids air leaks. The new finalist is the Smart, Individualized, Near-Face, Extended Wear (SINEW) mask, which does not touch the face at all. Particles can come near the wearer's nose and mouth.

The final round of testing will take place in the fall. The DRIVe team will announce two winners who will each receive $150,000 and two runners-up who will each receive $50,000. The challenge is a success. She says that they have achieved their goal of creating a community of like-minded innovators that just want to help other people. That was something that was not said. I think we achieved that for Phase 1 because we wanted to inspire and support novel designs.

Her ideal outcome for the next phase would be to help the finalist get approval from the FDA. We help support the generation of evidence based on these masks and how they work by giving them the opportunity to be tested and evaluated.

Linsey Marr is an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech who was not involved in the competition. We want to make it easy for people to wear good-quality masks because they are one of the easiest, fastest and cheapest ways to protect against diseases. They are not specific to any variant.