CAR3D

covid-19

COVID-19 Rapid Response Innovation Project

Improve Europe’s capacity to produce personal protective equipment

The challenge

The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 is creating sanitary challenges like never seen before. Until there is a vaccine or effective treatment, the use of masks and other types of personal protective equipment (PPE), is the best way to limit the spread of the virus circulation. The challenge is to maintain the supply of masks, which are often not made for reuse, as well as other PPE, such as face shields.

Additive Manufacturing, leveraging technologies such as 3D printing, could help to meet the demand for masks and other equipment, particularly in the case of reusable masks. However, we are faced with stark disparities across Europe in the standards and varieties of PPE and the coordination of regulatory certification.

The solution

A group of partners will work to design, develop and validate reusable masks that comply with EU specifications, making that design available for replication around Europe. The masks will meet quality standards in areas such as ergonomics, breathability and comfortable skin contact. The partners will also seek to design face shields that meet EU standards. The PPE created through this project will not receive a proprietary patent, and the digital designs will be shared widely, so that local Additive Manufacturers all over Europe can engage in production of high quality, reusable masks and face shields.

Expected impact

The immediate aims of the project are to reduce the pressure of the procurement of PPE by ensuring a greater supply of products that meet EU standards are widely available. Increased production will also reduce dependence on suppliers from outside Europe, as well as the use of PPE that does not meet European quality standards. Involving Additive Manufacturing suppliers means the current demand can be met without the need to scale up a new, dedicated industry, and it establishes a network of suppliers who can be called on in other emergencies.

All Partners

EIT Health members

Fundació Privada per la Recerca i la Docència Sant Joan de Déu
University of Barcelona

Linked third party

Hospital Sant Joan de Déu

External partners

Fundacion CIM
Barcelona Three Dimensional Printers SL

Members

CLC/InnoStars: Spain

Partner classification: Academic, Education, Research

The University of Barcelona is the most intensive university in research in Spain. Our university has a great capacity for innovation in various fields, of which the health sector stands out both due to the amount and the quality of the outcomes produced by faculties such as the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, the Faculty of Pharmacy and Nutrition or the Faculty of Psychology. Our activity within the EIT Health projects is often enriched and sometimes dominated by the technology and/or knowledge created in the Faculties of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science or even Fine Arts. We have also several Research Institutes that merge multidisciplinary teams working on topics as diverse as Neuroscience, Complex systems, Biomedicine, etc. as well as a couple of Technology Transfer Institutes such as CREATIO https://www.ub.edu/creatio/en/, the first Academic Center for the Production and Validation of Advanced Therapies in Spain, and Farmatec http://www.ub.edu/sdm/in_index.htm, a Service of Development of Medicines under GMP regulation

https://web.ub.edu/en/home

University of Barcelona

University of Barcelona, Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, 585, 08007 Barcelona, España

Key Activities in Research and Developement
https://web.ub.edu/en/research

Key Activities in Corporate Innovation
https://web.ub.edu/en/the-university

Key Activities in Business Creation
https://startub.ub.edu/en/community/incubated-companies/

Key Activities in Education
https://web.ub.edu/en/learn

See all partners

Arnau Valls
| | Hospital Sant Joan de Déu
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