A County Durham company wants firms to join a project to develop graphene-based materials that can be used as personal protective equipment in the battle against coronavirus.
Sedgefield-based Graphene Composites combines graphene - the strongest known material in the world - with other materials to produce products like shields that can stop bullets fired from some of the world’s most powerful weapons.
Now the firm, based at the Centre for Process Innovation at NETPark but currently with staff working from home, has revealed it has been working on a graphene ink that can be applied to fabrics including face masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE).
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The firm’s CEO Sandy Chen says the key difference is that most PPE traps or filters bacteria and viruses, but the graphene ink-treated PPE should kill them – providing significantly increased protection against coronavirus.
Once the firm has developed and tested what he describes as coronavirus-killing graphene ink technology, he wants to work with existing manufacturers and others keen to collaborate, to integrate it into masks and other PPE.
As part of that plan, he has launched a rallying call to all organisations that can work with him, and has documents ready to send out detailing how the graphene ink would work and how it would be developed and deployed.
An email sent out on Sunday to investors and contacts has already resulted in scores of responses and he said a leading US Ivy League university has also joined the team.
In the US, he is in discussions with leading local and federal authorities, and he wants to generate similar momentum in the 海角视频 and Europe.
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He said: “We’ve got experience in functionalising graphene and in ‘doping’ - attaching things to the surface of graphene - and one of the things we noticed was that with something called silver nano particles, become more virucidal - as in kill off virus - the smaller you make it.
“What we want to do is put the silver nano particles on the surface of graphene nanoplatelets which can then be put onto face masks and all other personal protective equipment (PPE).
“It’s been a hectic day. Since we put out the email to investors we’ve had dozens of positive responses from PPE manufacturers, pharmacologists, NHS doctors and other relevant people who are very interested in it.
“And we want to hear from more - from anyone who is interested in collaborating and cooperating with is to fight this coronavirus.
“Obviously it’s far more important for us to work together now, rather than trying to figure out who gets the patent.
“Frankly I don’t care about who gets the patent, or any of the commercial aspects of this - I think we should all just care about working together to beat this virus.
“I’m also looking to make contact with our local MP who can help us get back into the laboratory. At the moment the CPI is closed, which makes it very hard to run a laboratory, but it can be reopened if this is classed as a national priority.”