Nurkiewicz and his team concluded that air filter material from home furnaces—you know, the ones you forget to change every three months—can effectively obstruct coronavirus particles.
"HVAC furnace filters—especially the higher quality filters that remove allergens and dust mites—can perform well in blocking COVID-19," said Nurkiewicz, chair of Physiology and Pharmacology at the WVU School of Medicine. "We can layer that up and use it with publicly-available 3-D designs for respirator masks that would cover your face. That combination provides significant protection to anyone exposed to COVID-19 droplets."
Travis Goldsmith, iTOX senior research engineer, started the project by exploring ways to rapidly test unconventional filter materials. iTox worked in conjunction with Veronica Cyphert, Julie O'Neil and Dr. Robert Gerbo, of WVU Occupational Medicine, to identify that the air filter material in a 3-D-printed mask worked quite well. End quote
