Covid-19 pandemic has affected many lives and still we are in the process of saving ourselves. Since the beginning of the pandemic many innovations are going on to fight against the virus. The research group developed a new 3D printed antiviral material that kills Covid-19. This material is made up of silver, copper and tungsten which is capable of reducing contagion rates. The combination of these three materials would make it possible to reduce the spread of virus.
John Robinson, researcher at the University of Wolverhampton explains ” Our antiviral material displayed a 100% viral inactivation within five hours against a biologically-safe sample of COVID-19. This is a significant improvement on the previous copper coating results as all of the COVID-19 virus is eliminated.” In order to achieve this they used laser powder bed fusion. The scientists are trying to develop open source 3D printed masks with this material and still the process is going on.
The UK and South African variants have led health officials to increase protection measures. But still we are not aware of the extent it would go. So to solve this issue they came up with the new solution. As Robinson concludes “As the pandemic continues to evolve, various situations are likely to appear unpredictably. To enable an immediate response and rapid solution, we created an antiviral material that could be 3D printed and therefore can create antiviral surfaces when and where they are needed.”
Lot of advancements are going on in the medical field with the help of 3D printing.
Image Source: 3D Natives