ITA
Inactivating of corona virus by innovative textiles

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Researchers from Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin/Germany, at the Institute for Animal and Environmental Hygiene and the Institute of Textile Technology of RWTH Aachen University (ITA), Aachen/Germany, are collaborating on the topic of alternative personal protection equipment (PPE) with the objective of discovering alternative filter materials for face masks that can reduce Sars-CoV-2 virus particles. The testing was conducted in the context of the EIT Health Project ViruShield.
Livinguard Technologies AG, Zug/Switzerland, has developed a treatment for textile facial masks that can directly inactivate bacteria and viruses. While researchers at the ITA conducted experiments on the chemical and physical properties of various textiles for face masks, researchers at Freie Universität Berlin were able to demonstrate that these new textiles can reduce Sars-CoV-2 virus particles by up to 99.9 %.
The principle underlying the Livinguard Technology is that the textile surface has a strong positive charge. When microbes come into contact with the technology, the microbial cell, which is negatively charged, is destroyed.