From Respirators to Swabs: 3D Printing in a Pandemic

Abstract:

The COVID-19 crisis is stimulating new collaborations among scientists, engineers, and health care professionals that aim to make much needed personal protective equipment for front-line workers and testing supplies. Additive manufacturing (3D printing) is proving to be critical in this work, as it is a rapid and efficient method for developing functional prototypes for applications such as respirators and nasopharyngeal test swabs. We have been using desktop inverse stereolithography (SLA) 3D printing for fabricating geochemical reactors and other laboratory devices that enable new types of experimental research (Michel et al., 2018, Applied Geochemistry 89, 86-91; Kletetschka et al., 2018, Applied Geochemistry 98, 121-126). The knowledge and skills developed in this work have been readily transferrable to two specific projects related to the pandemic. In one project, off-the-shelf snorkel masks are being converted to full-face respirators capable of providing exceptional protection to health care professionals and their patients (https://www.pneumask.org). We have designed, fabricated, and tested custom adapters needed to connect several new mask models to viral (CPAP) filters, which will make more masks available for use. The second project is using 3D printing to fabricate large numbers of nasal test swabs in order to address persistent shortages in supply. Although the swab designs were already approved, significant effort was needed to test and validate the performance of swab prototypes, and to develop the necessary workflows to make them efficiently and safely at scale. These projects provide unique examples of how knowledge and skills developed in any field can be applied in new ways to help address important and unexpected challenges.