THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Caught under the grips of Covid-19, Kerala’s medical fraternity has been valiantly fighting the pandemic. But as the number of patients rose, the state faced a shortage of medical supplies, including N95 masks. The situation prompted Aerofil Filters India Private Limited, a start-up involved in the supply of air filters, to focus its attention on manufacturing N95 masks.
The establishment successfully developed an N95 that passed all safety requirements within two weeks of the first phase of lockdown. The start-up is a subsidiary of Filtrowin Industries, situated in SEZ Kakkand. The parent establishment has 10 years’ worth of experience in manufacturing air filters, which came in handy while making the mask on a war foot basis with the logistic support of various state government departments.
“The filtration efficiency of High Particulate Efficiency Air (HEPA) filters and N95 masks are similar. While our experience in manufacturing the former went a long way in developing the mask, there were a lot of first-timers for us in the whole process,” said Santhosh Kumar P D, MD of Aerofil Filters.The major part of the process is the procurement of the air filtration material (‘Polypropylene Melt Blown Non-Woven’) used in the mask.
With the majority of the manufacturers of the material being situated in China and very few domestic producers, the material had to be imported into the country, despite no air traffic. Most of the other raw materials required for the mask have been sourced from within the state.There are a lot of factors that need to be considered in the process of converting a few pieces of fabric to an N95, such as its shape, earloop and locking system, laminating the fabrics without reducing the filtration efficiency or breathability and ensuring zero leakage etc.
The edges of the mask have to be sealed using ultrasonic welding technology, unlike normal cloth masks that are stitched. This ensures that the virus does not penetrate into the mask through the pinholes of the stitches. “While there are fully automatic mask-manufacturing machines, these have a waiting period of a couple of months before they can be brought in and set up. Hence, we chose to modify our existing machines as well as order individual machine units that can cater to various stages of mask making. This necessitates manpower, making the process slow. We have placed orders for automatic machines and hope to soon start production using them,’ added Santhosh.
The company also set up ‘clean-room’ that complies with all safety standards for manufacturing the mask. The N95 mask, that has passed the quality checks of the central government, has 98 per cent filtering efficiency. They are now supplying masks to the Kerala Medical Supplies Corporation and various other agencies. “Through the process, Maker Village acted as a consultancy of sorts helping us navigate various quality tests for the masks. The officials of Kerala Medical Supplies Corporation and various executives extended their support through the process. We hope to meet the requirements of the entire medical fraternity of the state in the coming months,” said Santhosh.