Highlights
- Biodegradable, anti-virus fabric produced in India
- Fabric can protect against viruses and is compostable
- Manufacturer to produce masks for school children first
Now an Indian company has claimed it has produced a fabric which not only provides protection against the viruses but is also biodegradable.
Once the patent is registered, the company hopes to make cost-effective masks, hotel bedsheets, and loose gowns for front line workers.
The creator, Mr Rajesh Chopra said, "My new fabric has an active multidimensional charged field, which will attract the virus, bacteria etc and neautralise, rendering them ineffective. Here the disadvantage of pores size is balanced by the active field which does not allow any virus to pass through."
Mr Chopra says additional layers can be used as per requirements but he hopes schools children will be able to wear this one-ply mask and return to onsite learning in India.
"Testng of the fabric is in process and will take time. But it is a proven technology. I have just used it to mix the correct materials to make a soft, breathable, compostable, economical product. Meanwhile, I am preparing to produce masks, primarily for students and then the society," he told SBS Hindi.
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Mr Chopra, who has been part of the textile industry for four decades says it took him three months to come up with this product.
"It is a result of continous interaction with the like-minded IITians [engineers from India's elite Indian Institute of Technology] and took me 3 months to conceive the idea, with my 45 years of experience in Textiles," he said.
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