Meet the Air Curtain: An Invisible Mask to Kill Viruses, Block Nearly All Aerosols

An air curtain shooting down from the brim of a hard hat can prevent 99.8 percent of aerosols from reaching a worker’s face. Watch this video to learn more about the technology, which was created by University of Michigan startup Taza Aya.

“Our air curtain technology is precisely designed to protect wearers from airborne infectious pathogens, using treated air as a barrier in which any pathogens present have been inactivated so that they are no longer able to infect you if you breathe them in,” said Herek Clack  , U-M associate professor of civil and environmental engineering. “It’s virtually unheard of—our level of protection against airborne germs, especially when combined with the improved ergonomics it also provides.”

Transcript

00:00:00 surely there's something better for personal respiratory protection than requiring people to try and breathe through a particle filter for us instead of trying to filter out those small particles we choose instead to inactivate them [Music] [Music] for Michigan turkey there are all of

00:00:33 these unwanted side effects of preventing transmission of respiratory diseases between their workers that would you know if they if it went unchecked it would hinder their ability to process quickly but the solutions that were out there caused their own problems and so Michigan turkey is like help us do better than [Music]

00:00:56 this the air curtain by itself within Taza AA we had found a 95 greater than 95% reduction in the number of aerosols that reach the breathing zone of the wear amazingly when we sent the air curtain to a third party independent Testing Lab they found far better results they found um 99.8% reduction if there are a thousand particles approaching your face weing

00:01:24 the air curtain knocks that number down to three but that's just the first of the two components of of our approach right so we still have the plasma that is inactivating viruses in the air used to form the air curtain and so from the work in my U ofm lab what we found is that the plasma can also achieve more than two log reductions so greater than 99% reduction in the number

00:01:50 of infectious viruses after the plasma treatment as compared to before so you have these two things one is the air curtain providing an obstacle providing deflection of air sols 99.8% the plasma providing an activation of any Airborne pathogens that would be in the air that is used to form the air curtain 99 plus per. so the two together are what form the solution that we have

00:02:15 that is this wearable device this device allows people to continue to use their face and facial expressions their mouth access their nose and mouth in ways that they couldn't do with a conventional face mask so eating and drinking while still remaining protected that means you're you know if you are Amal compromised or if you are

00:02:42 otherwise still skittish about going out into public spaces going out to eat or drink you can do that now and and not worry about uh being infected