INNOVATION-July-August-2020

T op to bottom : Unbleached and bleached wood fibres utilized for Can-Mask prototyping. Cup-styled prototype with active part corresponding to the middle filtration portion. 3-D printed mold used for Can-Mask prototyping. P hotos : P aul J ospeh /UBC.

water that was coming out of the faucet could actually kill the virus while you’re washing your hands. That could be something.” Gupta expects to have two prototype washbasins ready by December 2020 to deploy in Victoria and Vancouver. If successful, he envisions eventually having banks or circles of multiple step-controlled compact sinks, each with contactless faucets, soap and paper towel dispensers, outside all high-traffic buildings—even after this particular pandemic is over. “We know washing hands is essential for controlling any disease,” said Gupta. The new coating could also be used for high-contact surfaces such as door handles and shopping carts, countertops and bathtubs, “and even on gym equipment, the swings in the park— anywhere there is a painted surface.” Yet another modern-day version of alchemy is going on at UBC, where a team is attempting to turn wood into an easy- to-produce and inexpensive face mask that is also biodegradable and compostable. The project is the brainchild of Dr. Johan Foster, who landed at UBC to take up a new post as an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering just as the pandemic hit, and Dr. Orlando Rojas, Scientific Director of UBC’s Bioproducts Institute, which focusses on creating high- performance materials from renewable resources. They recognized early in March both that international supply chains are frighteningly fragile during a pandemic, and that far too many people were simply casting their used face masks away wherever they happened to be, which could quickly create an environmental nightmare since they are mostly made with synthetic materials, such as polypropylene, that take decades to degrade.

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