Taiwanese inventor devises ways to reuse N95 masks, homemade alternatives

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/07/08
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Taiwanese inventor of the modern N95 respirator has come out of retirement to help the U.S. in its battle against the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19).

Born in Taichung and a mechanical engineer and material scientist by trade, Dr. Peter Tsai (蔡秉燚) is the inventor of the electrostatic charging technology used in the N95 mask. An industrial version of the mask had originally been created by 3M in 1972, but in 1992, Tsai formed a team at the University of Tennessee (UT) to develop technology to enable the masks to protect against drug-resistant Tuberculosis, and he patented his virus-blocking technology in 1995.

Tsai retired from UT in 2019 and remained in Knoxville, Tenn, but as the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. he came out of retirement in April of 2020 to provide consulting on ways to decontaminate the N95 mask, according to NPR. As coronavirus cases continue to spiral out of control in the U.S., Tsai recently told the Washington Post that “Everyone was asking me about the respirators.”

He said that many people are asking him how to scale up the production of the respirators and how to sterilize them for reuse. Therefore, he set up a laboratory in his own home and began experimenting with ways to decontaminate the masks.   [FULL  STORY]