Theoretical Sciences Unit Seminar - 25 March 2022

Seminar: Masking it all up - Two Soft Matter Solutions for the COVID-19 Pandemic

Speaker: Prof. Mahesh M. Bandi

Affiliation: OIST Graduate University, Japan

Date: 25th March 2022

Time: 02:00 PM

Venue: Kanada Auditorium

Abstract

I first read about N95 masks and their being the only viable design capable of protecting against SARS-CoV-2 in February 2020. Academic curiosity initially led me to study their functionality, and when masks became scarce during the pandemic's early days, I attempted manufacturing N95 masks starting in March 2020.

In the first part of my talk, I will discuss how I built a cotton candy machine in my garage using a drill and a beer can to fabricate the dielectric fabrics used in N95 masks with discarded plastic containers as my input material.

In the second part, I'll discuss how I took my microwave oven apart to construct a corona discharge system to electrocharge these dielectric fabrics to achieve the N95 filtration standard.