Podcast: Invisible Shield: Blocking Germs with Wearable Tech

In this episode, we explore the groundbreaking invisible mask developed by a University of Michigan spin-off that is equipped with a wearable air curtain capable of killing viruses and blocking 99.8% of aerosols.

Episode Notes

(0:50) - An invisible mask? Wearable air curtain, treated to kill viruses, blocks 99.8% of aerosols

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Transcript

What's up party people? Today we're talking all about the invisible air curtain, which is an advice that can protect you without ever having to wear a mask again. It shoots a cool treated air barrier around your face and it blocks over 99% of the potential threats and viruses coming towards your face without the hassle of a mask. That's why I think the next pandemic that comes around, we won't need a mask, we'll have air curtains instead. Let's check it out.

I'm Daniel, and I'm Farbod. And this is the NextByte Podcast. Every week, we explore interesting and impactful tech and engineering content from Wevolver.com and deliver it to you in bite sized episodes that are easy to understand, regardless of your background. 

Daniel: What's up friends? Like we said, today we're talking all about the future of masks, which in this case, maybe no masks at all in the workplace and God forbid another global pandemic happens.

Farbod: Don't say that.

Daniel: Yeah, I'm knocking on wood right now. But we're talking about a team from Michigan engineering. I think they spun out and created a startup to create a device called the wearable air curtain. It kind of is what it sounds like, but they've got this awesome device that has an air curtain that kind of comes out from the brim of a hat above your head and shoots down a wall of clean air blocking out 99.8% of aerosols. And it's essentially just like a light backpack with air filter, air handling unit and a battery pack. And I don't know, they think this is the future of air filtration, of personal protective equipment (PPE), and for everyone who could not stop complaining about wearing a mask during the pandemic, you might be excited to find out about the invisible air curtain.

Farbod: Well, there's a good story behind the genesis of this idea. And, University of Michigan, so this is a Michigan based story. This company called Michigan Turkey, which as the name might imply, is a company in Michigan that processes turkeys.

Daniel: Not a company in Turkey that processes Michigan's.

Farbod: That's super dad joke. I don't even know what to say to that, but yes. Went to Taza Aya, the spinoff from University of Michigan that does some of this work, and they were like, hey, our workers, they work in an area where if they get sick, it's, they work closely with each other. Its airborne analysis can kind of shut our plant down. Think back to COVID when meatpacking industry kind of took a hit. A lot of people couldn't work and because of that the price of meat went up. You know it has it's like this domino effect that can have a real bad outcome for the general population but on top of that they're also working with poultry so like you know there's illnesses that can be about so they got to protect themselves with masks. Now I feel like a lot of folks listening to this podcast that wear masks can relate to why this is such a pain point for these workers. They talk about how the masks usually require a really tight seal. So, if you remember the guidelines that we had when it came to wearing masks, it's like, it has to be tight around your nose, tight around your mouth. If you got facial hair like me, you gotta shave it so you gotta have the real nice tight fit, which is obviously, not fun. And then you also have friction introduced when communicating with folks because they can't see your mouth. And that becomes even a bigger problem for some of the folks, they said a lot of the people that work at these factories, English is their second language, so those like clues to just looking at someone's mouth, that makes a big impact on how well you can communicate with each other. And then lastly, and I think this is a really big one, when you're eating, you have to take off a mask. And you're usually in a break room, you're eating with other people, so if you take it off and you talk and you eat, then you're exposing yourself to all the things that the mask is supposed to protect you from.

Daniel: Yeah, well it’s like, the fundamental thing about masks is like they have to have the right material and they have to have the right seal to even be functional at all. And I feel like we all did a great job of doing our best during the pandemic of like wearing a mask and trying to do it in a way that protects ourselves and protects others. But I feel like nine times out of 10, we're either doing something that like caused the seal to get screwed up or wearing it a little bit low so you can breathe easier through your nose or taking it off so you can eat or I even like distinctly remember having to wear a mask a lot when I was at work. In an industrial setting, right? In an automotive factory where you have to wear safety goggles. And like, if the mask is situated wrong, it fogs up your glasses. But then I was like, well, that's an indicator that it's not blocking all the air anyway, if it's leaking out and fogging up my goggles, but you know, again, several issues regarding communication issues, safety concerns, convenience, and then overall effectiveness. Was it really working the way that we were all wearing them? And if you're in a situation where you need to wear a mask for work, for your own protection, for protection of others, for protection of the food that you're handling and processing, there's got to be a better way.

Farbod: Yeah. And that's why these folks at Michigan Turkey came to Taza Aya, and they were like, please, there has to be a better way and you gotta do it. And there's actually a good reason as to why they came to this specific startup. The professor that co-founded it and co-leads it, it's Professor Herek Clack. I think it's Klack or Clack, I don't know. You gotta check me on that day.

Daniel: Clack.

Farbod: Klack, there we go.

Daniel: I think, or Klack.

Farbod: We're gonna go with Clack for now and then correct ourselves later if we're wrong. Professor Clack has a background into kind of battling airborne aerosols and particles, but the origins of his story isn't surrounded with humans and COVID. It actually goes, if I'm not mistaken, all the way back to 2017 where he was trying to combat this respiratory illness that was threatening pigs. It's called the Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus that was causing the US about $650 million in losses every year. And the idea he was using there was how can we use plasma, and this is gonna make sense in a second, how can we use plasma to make air clean before we make it available to be used? And the reason that we're focusing on plasma, you know, you can think of fire, which is technically a plasma, not a gas, and fire has been used forever to like sanitize and sterilize equipment, right? Same idea here, if you have charged ions, that can neutralize contaminants, then you get clean air from the other side. So, he had some experience in that. That's why they were driven to come to this specific startup and the specific group to work with them on this future generation of these masks, or not masks.

Daniel: Yeah, they're not masks, but it's an air curtain, which is really cool. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but air curtains are actually something that's used a lot in building infrastructure. So, like, think about walking into the grocery store. They've got, some of them have got this huge fan at the top of the door that blows truly like a curtain of air straight down. And what it's supposed to do is prevent the fluid transfer of air coming in and out of that door or at least mitigate it to some extent. And people do it a lot to keep the air in or out of a room clean, but they also do it a lot to save money, right? If you've got this door that's always swinging open for people to walk in and out, using this air curtain can help prevent cold air from coming in in the winter. Or the cold air in the building from leaking out during the summer. So, this air curtain has existed on the macro scale and it's also used in things like clean rooms, et cetera, to try and prevent dust from coming in and out. But in this case, this team from Taza Aya was like, can we miniaturize this and make a mini air curtain around your face? And like you were saying, use non-thermal plasma, cold plasma to help filter the air, inactivating any pathogens, inactivating any impurities before it reaches this wall of air nozzles spraying clean air in front of your face, basically creating a force field of clean air in front of your face.

Farbod: That's a great way of thinking about it. It is literally a force field. And it's a two-part solution that really make sure that the user is as safe as possible. So, you have, like he said, the air curtain. It's a jet of air that is blocking any particles coming your way, right? That's the idea, at least you have this supposedly impenetrable wall that if someone's speaking at you, if there's aerosols that are blasted your way, it's supposed to block that by jetting down air. Now, they did some testing in-house to see how effective this was. And with their testing, they were like, oh, we're able to block 95% of particles that are coming to the way of the air jet at wall. But then they send it to a third-party lab and the lab said it's actually blocking like 99.8% of the particles coming through. So, imagine if there's like a thousand particles coming its way, only three are making their way through, which is pretty impressive.

Daniel: Yeah, and again, the fact that this really just looks like a hat. It's got a backpack that weighs less than 10 pounds and the third-party tests confirm that it's effective. I think that it's like a really cool application of a technology originally used for protecting livestock and now can use it to protect humans. And they talk about all the different applications of it, but I kind of want to talk about the inverse of the pain points from before. These are the like the unique selling points of this technology, right? Remember communication is used, masks like either muffle your voices and or hide your facial expressions. I remember like people trying to wear masks with a little clear window in it so that you can see their lips when they're talking and then it would just fog up like after they say something 30 seconds later. This air curtain is perfectly transparent. You can't even tell when it's operating. Works really well acoustically doesn't muffle voices that much and it definitely doesn't hide your facial expressions from an effectivity perspective. We mentioned it's over 99% effective at blocking out certain aerosols. Don't have to worry about whether this is sealed properly around your face. And in your case, cause you're fortunate enough to be able to grow beard. You don't have to shave it. Right. In my case, you know, wouldn't have lost much anyway. And then especially from safety concerns perspective, right. For these folks working in an industrial setting, they don't have to worry about the effectiveness of their masks, but they can also still wear safety goggles and they don't fog up and you can wear this thing around the clock and it doesn't bother you and it doesn't impede you. Doesn't create any additional safety issues while still trying to protect you from any pathogens or any chemicals that are in the work environment that you're in.

Farbod: Yeah. And I just want to iterate again, just like how impressive of a feat this is, because they made a note of it themselves. But there is nothing on the market that can perform as well as this does when it comes to filtering out contaminants. So, I already gave the figure about the air jet that's coming down blocking 99.8% of the particles coming your way. But then Dan, you had talked about this non-thermal plasma in the backpack that's filtering air as well. So, the air that is being jetted down to create that wall, it's also coming from your surroundings. So that's where the plasma is doing its work to neutralize any contaminants that might be there. And it's doing such a good job that it's neutralizing over 99% of whatever's coming in. So, you have the air wall at 99.8% and the plasma at over 99%, keeping you as safe as possible. And all of this is happening in a package that allows you to basically operate as normal. You just have a 10-pound backpack, you can talk, people can see your face, you can eat, you don't have to worry about the right fit and finish, none of that. And this is everything, this Michigan Turkey company would have wanted from a product like this. And I think, I don't want to speak for everyone else that's listening out there. But when I reflect back during our time in COVID, this is something I would have totally signed up for too, if it meant that I didn't have to wear those N95 masks anymore.

Daniel: Yeah, I'm with you. And one of the, I think just the really telling demonstration for me is you should check out the link in our show notes and go to the YouTube video that's linked on this article and go to about the two minute, 20 second mark.

Farbod: Where the air is coming in.

Daniel: Exactly, right? There's a demonstration of the person wearing this air curtain on their face. And they've got a stream of smoke coming straight toward their face, kind of demonstrating these are aerosols. These are pathogens coming towards you. Or these are chemicals from the air around you headed straight towards your face. And then it's just an invisible clear wall of clean air pushing the smoke away. And it looks like the smoke just comes and comes and comes. And then about two inches out from this person's face, it shoots straight down. And they're able to like take their hand in and out of the air curtain to make gestures in front of their face. They're able to speak and it doesn't interrupt the protection at all from the smoke that would be coming towards the hat's brim. Pretty awesome. And on top of all that, I think we have to give some credit to the name Taza Aya. Did you look it up at all?

Farbod: I didn't know.

Daniel: Okay, so I think the co.., so you mentioned one of the co-founders is Professor Herrick Clack. The other one is Alberto Elli.

Farbod: Uh-huh.

Daniel: I think he's from Kyrgyzstan. Oh. And in Kyrgyzstan.

Farbod: Does it mean new idea?

Daniel: It means clean air.

Farbod: Oh, okay, nevermind. Yeah. That's a great name.

Daniel: Yeah.

Farbod: I think I'm giving this an eight and a half out of 10.

Daniel: I was just gonna say like eight, seven. It's a great name.

Farbod: Pretty solid.

Daniel: Also, wanna mention Taza Aya won, I think quick fire challenge was what it was called. Johnson and Johnson innovation Institute in cooperation with the US department of health. They won an award.

Farbod: Well-deserved. I can see why.

Daniel: Yeah. For this design. And again, just at a high level. Think it makes a lot of sense. Helps with safety, helps with communication, helps with user convenience. Recognizes an award winner by Johnson and Johnson at a high level, they're still doing prototyping and looking at early production. They're set to launch in 2025, where I think they could become commercially available. One of the things we've also committed to doing in this podcast is making sure we give very clear pros and cons for every piece of technology we talk about. We've talked a lot about the pros, right? Blocking 99 plus percent of aerosols, doesn't muffle your voice, doesn't fog your goggles, communicate clearly, don't have to take it off when you eat. And comfortable and ergonomic, unlike wearing a mask, which gets uncomfortable after a little while. Con's probably relatively expensive compared to masks. If you don't wanna wear a backpack with a battery or an air filter on it, that could also be a big hindrance for you. And in my mind, I'm thinking battery life, maintenance, all these things that come along with making a low-tech solution, high tech. Are there any of these issues going to hinder the adoption curve? I'm sure, but I'm also confident this team could work through those as well.

Farbod: I wonder, no, I'll be honest since COVID's been over, I really haven't been messing up quite a lot. I mean, I say COVID's over, but you know, waves of it are coming in. But the reality is that I'm fortunate enough to be in a condition where like, you know, my immune system is doing well enough where from flu season to COVID season, I don't worry much, but you know, there's a lot of immune compromised friends out there that have to be super careful about where they go and if they're completely messed up. And I wonder if a solution like this is actually a worthwhile investment for them as it would make their lives so much easier, right? Or you have patients who are on maybe medications that make them immune to compromise. And for the duration of that time, they don't wanna give up the niceties of life and just hanging out with people and being able to have face-to-face conversations and things like that. And I wonder if this could be their version of buying a PS5 for the year and just, you know, worth the investment.

Daniel: No, I'm with you in especially, again, it doesn't look like you're wearing a mask. It looks like you're wearing a hat and a backpack, which is pretty cool. But on top of that, I think the effectiveness 99.8%, I don't think anyone can like, if they're truly honest with themselves, be like, am I wearing a mask in a way that creates 99 plus percent level efficacy? I think in practice, that's really, really hard to reach unless you're in like a medical setting where you do this every single day for work, even then, who knows? I think that there's definitely even just from a pure efficacy perspective saying, you know, this is head and shoulders above what you might be able to achieve with your cotton mask at home. Anything else?

Farbod: I think that's about it. You want to wrap it up?

Daniel: Yeah, I'll wrap it up here. Folks, this device can protect you from the outer world without ever having to wear a mask again. Masks we all know they're annoying. They muffle your voices, they can fog up your glasses, and they need a perfect seal and the right material to be able to work properly. Enter the wearable air curtain from University of Michigan. This device shoots a treated barrier of air around your face, blocking over 99% of the aerosols that would come intrude towards your face without the hassle of ever having to wear a mask. Just looks like you're wearing a hat and a backpack. So, say goodbye to masks, say hello to clear communication, better comfort, better safety and better efficacy. And that's why the next time a global pandemic comes around, I don't think you'll need a mask. We'll be ready with air curtains instead.

Farbod: Yeah. That's your mask. Folks, thank you so much for listening. As always, we'll catch you in the next one.

Daniel: Peace.

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The Next Byte: We're two engineers on a mission to simplify complex science & technology, making it easy to understand. In each episode of our show, we dive into world-changing tech (such as AI, robotics, 3D printing, IoT, & much more), all while keeping it entertaining & engaging along the way.