Inspiration
Elven Technologies was founded with a sole goal - to protect human life and safety. We are the team of medical doctors, scientists and engineers, and our major tools towards accomplishing this goal are innovation, science and technology.
We've been building a building novel technologies for our first product - firefighter suit with a cooling system. - We've already built and tested a prototype that performs 200 time longer in flames than current uniforms on the market (30 min. protection is 2000oF VS 8 seconds of protection). We're starting field tests with Georgian firefighters in Q3-Q4/2020.
We've seen a major challenge in COVID-19 pandemic - lack of adequate personal protection equipment for first line personnel as well as for civilians. The reason behind this challenge is crash of supply chain of PPE products and raw materials for manufacturing these products, as well as insufficient manufacturing capabilities around the globe. Most people use face masks that provide either no or little protection against transmission of coronavirus.
On the other hand, healthcare and other first line personnel wear panoramic face shields and surgical face masks as their primary PPE. Both of these PPE's provide protection only from direct sneeze or cough, as there are clearly large open areas around a mask and a shield providing room for air to flow during breathing. The air where personnel operates has a high concentration of viruses that poses a huge risk of transmission of infection. Infected healthcare personnel become the major route of transmission.
What it does
We decided to build a simple DIY design, comfortable, multiple-use complete face mask with a face seal, that will protect the eyes (mucous membranes are one of the important ways of being infected), mouth and nose. So it's a combination of a face mask and the face shield including the seal. It should be so easy to build, that everybody should be able to build it at home. It should also have a filter holder that would allow to insert high-level (N95, FFP2/3, N100 etc.) filters and turn it into superior protection mask for healthcare personnel.
How we built it
We've been trying multiple usual household items. It is already buildable but we're still looking to simplifying to the easiest level, es well as trying to solve some challenges.
Challenges we ran into
- Building face seal;
- Making the mask easily cleanable and reusable - conservation of materials is crucial;
- Design - despite the goal to make it super-easy to build and have high-protection at the same time, looks are very important, and we're doing our best to find a solution with simplicity, high-protection and good design.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're really proud of our achievements with the firefighter suit that will save thousands of lives every year.
What we learned
Face protection and air filtration are one of the most important parts of full body personal protection uniforms that we intend to build for firefighters, astronauts and other high risk personnel. This is the perfect opportunity to learn and innovate in these ares, giving us the possibility to help keep potentially millions of people protected from COVID-19 as well as giving us the experience for our future suits and products.
What's next for Elven DIY Mask
According to our customer research one of the major problems in modern fire-fighting PPE is the face mask/respirator they use. It has the lowest temperature resistance amongst different firefighter equipment. Building the face mask for COVID-19 pandemic will give us the experience and knowledge of materials and methods, and help us build an advanced-protection respirators for firefighters.
Built With
- household
- materials
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.