The shortage of personal protective equipment is one of the most defining issues of the world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Nova Scotia, several local businesses have shifted production to make PPE for health-care workers on the frontlines.
The NSHA has also introduced measures to conserve its PPE supply, amid reported thefts. But those are all Band-Aid solutions.
As most of Nova Scotia’s PPE supply is from abroad, the need for manufacturing PPE locally has never been more important.
That’s what Gary Markle, professor of textiles and fashion at NSCAD University, is hoping to achieve. He’s collaborating with John Frampton, a Dalhousie University professor of biomedical engineering, on a project to create a PPE fabric that is local and sustainable.
It all started with a polymer that Frampton was experimenting with in his lab for applications including wound suturing. Polymers are a large class of materials that include cellulose, starch, nylon and polyester. They consist of small molecules linked together to form long chains that we use in manufacturing different products.
Frampton got in touch with Markle when he got the idea to use the polymer for creating garments.
Markle says it couldn’t have come at a better time.
“We were like, ‘We were just looking for a fibre like what you’ve got,’” says Markle.
A garment that protects from viruses
To make a garment, the polymer will be powdered then mixed in water to form a paste. When the paste is stretched, it turns into a fibre that dries as it gets longer.
“It’s much different from the melting processes usually used which would destroy any drugs or chemicals you put into the material at the beginning,” says Frampton.
The dried fibre will be used to create a PPE fabric.
“We are thinking of 3D printing (the fibres) on demand as a cloth, something that would be supple and beautiful,” says Markle.
Frampton expects that using this method to create PPE will have an advantage. If Frampton adds an anti-viral drug to the polymer when dissolving it in the water, the drug may still work when the fibre dries.
“The textile would be viricidal, so it kills any virus that comes in contact with it.”
This means that a health-care worker wearing PPE created from this textile will be protected from contracting viruses.
Frampton and Markle have been awarded $50,000 from the Nova Scotia COVID-19 Health Research Coalition funding competition for their project.
“Right now, it’s just a really cool concept,” says Frampton. “If it’s possible and we know how well it works, then the next step will be figuring out how to make it into something that someone can safely wear.”
The research team will explore whether masks created using the polymer can filter as well as N95 masks.
Creating sustainable PPE
Before Frampton and Markle joined forces at the beginning of 2020, Markle had been trying to create sustainable medical scrubs.
“I thought we need to think of garments that could be useful in a crisis or on a spaceship,” says Markle. “In fashion, you have to always be looking ahead at what might come.”
Within a few months, Sars-CoV-2 swept the world. The need for these garments was amplified as health-care providers had to change PPE continuously to protect themselves and their patients, creating a lot of waste in the process.
“So much of (PPE) is single use. And perhaps there was at the beginning a lack of understanding of what levels of PPE are needed for each situation. And understandably so, because (COVID-19) is an emergency,” says Markle. “There’s a responsibility as much as possible to address that waste.”
This is where the research project will play a big role. Frampton says the polymer he is studying can be extracted from natural sources, making the garments created with the polymer biodegradable.
“To make something sustainable, we could take advantage of the local materials, so things like crustacean shells contain the polymer in them," says Frampton. "Seaweed also contains the polymer."
Creating recyclable PPE won’t be an easy feat as there are regulatory hurdles and obstacles to manufacturing that the research team needs to overcome.
While multiple layers of PPE are necessary for protection, patients receiving care may feel disconnected from the health-care provider wearing them. Markle says humanizing PPE may seem “frivolous” as we live through a pandemic, but it may help care providers feel more comfortable, allowing them to focus on delivering better care.
Seeing frontline workers with abrasions on their faces from wearing masks for long periods of time got the research team thinking whether the new PPE they’re creating can solve this problem. Later in the research process, Markle and Frampton plan to reach out to health-care professionals to assess their needs.
PPE that fits women
Another area for improvement of PPE is sizing.
"Historically, women’s patterns, especially in PPE, have been based on a men’s shape and then adapted,” says Kelsey MacDonald, a local fashion designer who also works for a company that provides sizing solutions for the uniform industry.
She says the company is planning on helping PPE brands provide better sizing options for women.
“There’s also an infinite amount of body shapes for women,” she says. “PPE brands really need to focus on fitting a woman’s body properly ... Everyone needs a good fit for their comfort and safety.”
