3-D Printed Protective Equipment during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

While the number of coronavirus cases from 2019 continues to grow, hospitals are reporting shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline healthcare workers. Furthermore, PPE for the eyes and mouth, such as face shields, allow for additional protection when working with aerosols. 3-D printing enables the easy and rapid production of lightweight plastic frameworks based on open-source data. The practicality and clinical suitability of four face shields printed using a fused deposition modeling printer were examined. The weight, printing time, and required tools for assembly were evaluated. To assess the clinical suitability, each face shield was worn for one hour by 10 clinicians and rated using a visual analogue scale. The filament weight (21-42 g) and printing time (1:40-3:17 h) differed significantly between the four frames. Likewise, the fit, wearing comfort, space for additional PPE, and protection varied between the designs. For clinical suitability, a chosen design should allow sufficient space for goggles and N95 respirators as well as maximum coverage of the facial area. Consequently, two datasets are recommended. For the final selection of the ideal dataset to be used for printing, scalability and economic efficiency need to be carefully balanced with an acceptable degree of protection.

Covid-19 pandemic and the unprecedented mobilisation of scholarly efforts prompted by a health crisis: Scientometric comparisons across SARS, MERS and 2019-nCoV literature

“…Though not shown in Fig. 3 , due to the respective values being smaller than 1%, journals in the following subject areas (those that are deemed minor areas in relation to Covid-19 literature) have each published a relatively considerable number of studies on this topic (a feature that is not necessarily shared by the rest of the literature on coronaviruses): Arts and Humanities (110 items, 2 where the most active journal has been Social Anthropology (24 items) covering topics such as “climate change reactions” (Bychkova 2020 ), or “legal voids linked to declared states of emergency” (Karaseva 2020 )), Economics, Econometrics and Finance (84 items, with Economic and Political Weekly (36 items) being the most active journal of that category, covering topics such as “food supply chains” (Reardon et al 2020 ), “economic stimulus packages” (Mulchandani 2020 ) or “reverse migration” (Dandekar and Ghai 2020 )), Physics and Astronomy (77 items, where Chaos Solitons and Fractals (16 items) has been the most active publication outlet, covering topics such as “mathematical models for forecasting the outbreak” (Barmparis and Tsironis 2020 ; Bekiros and Kouloumpou 2020 ; Boccaletti et al 2020 ; Ndaïrou et al 2020 ; Postnikov 2020 ; Ribeiro et al 2020 ; Zhang et al 2020 )), Energy (67 items, with International Journal of Advanced Science And Technology (44 items) being the most active journal in that category, covering topics such as “Flexible work arrangement in manufacturing” (Sedaju et al 2020 )), Material Sciences (57 items, with ACS Nano (10 items) being the most active outlet in that category, covering topics such as “3-D printed protective equipment” (Wesemann et al 2020 )), Decision Sciences (23 items, with Lancet Digital Health (8 items) and Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives (4 items) being the most active outlets in that category, covering topics such as “the effect of social distancing on travel behaviour” (De Vos 2020 ) or “the implementation of drive-through and walk-through diagnostic testing” (Lee and Lee 2020 )), Earth and Planetary Sciences (22 items, with Indonesian Journal of Science and Technology (8 items) being most active in that domain, covering topics such as “the deployment of drones in sending drugs and patient blood samples” (Anggraeni et al 2020 )).…”

Mass-production and Distribution of Medical Face Shields Using Additive Manufacturing and Injection Molding Process for Healthcare System Support During COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil

“…Many countries around the world have used the FDM process to produce cost-effective medical face shields [35][36][41][42][43][44][45][46]. However, due to process' heterogeneity, some devices have been produced with no standardized procedure or medical approval.…”

“…However, some 3D-printed face shield are as good as commercial standardmodels [36]. It is possible to de ne the practicality, and clinical suitability of 3D-printed face shields related to weight, printing time, and if it required assembling tools to nd an ideal dataset to be used for printing, scalability, and economic e ciency [46].…”

“…Even though some authors claim that the FDM is a slow process and not suitable for mass production of face shields [35,43,46], the IM process, in contrast, requires skilled operators and relatively costly materials and equipment to be carried out. None of the additive manufacturing technologies is yet able to practically replace IM for medium-and high production volumes [49].…”

“…While IM allows producing a large number of parts in a short period time, the distribution through a continental country like Brazil takes a long time, making it di cult to ful ll large orders in a quick fashion, regardless of production method. Despite not being as fast as IM processes, the FDM method allows the at-home, on-demand manufacture of face shields by a broad spectrum of users [46]. It is also possible also to have multiple frames printed at the same time to decrease production time using stacked frames.…”