By Kristy Dorsey

Engineers from the University of Glasgow have overhauled machinery normally used for research projects to produce safety visors for those in need of personal protective equipment (PPE).

After switching tack from 3D printers to injection moulding, the team led by professor Nikolaj Gadegaard can now manufacture up to 1,000 pieces daily for as long as they are required. These are being distributed free of charge to care home workers, shop assistants and others throughout the city.

So far, they’ve made about 3,000 pieces of PPE, which were initially produced after the team pooled together 3D printers from across the university at the end of March. However, they soon realised that the printing process was very slow compared to injection moulding, where molten plastic is put into moulds to quickly produce large numbers of items.

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Tom Dickson and Wilson Macdougall, technicians at the university’s James Watt School of Engineering, worked “flat-out” for three days to create a suitable mould template for use in equipment that previously manufactured small parts for biomedical research. This cut production time down to just 26 seconds per visor headband.

“The school provided us with the funds to start investigating our options and buy the raw materials we need, which is why we can offer the visors free of charge to carers,” Mr Gadegaard said. “Having our own injection moulding tools allows us to produce at a scale each day which is equivalent to nearly 100 3D printers working around the clock.”

The team currently has enough raw material to keep producing the headbands for many weeks, but the plastic acetate visors are becoming more difficult to source. They are calling for donations of 250-micron acetate sheets from anyone who has any to spare.

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Meanwhile, academics from the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) are working with a Stirling-based firm on a prototype facemask that could be used by the public.

Known as the Face Gaiter, the product has been developed by fabric architecture firm tensARC as an alternative to medical-grade masks that remain in short supply among frontline workers. With backing from the Scottish Funding Council, researchers at UWS’s School of Health and Life Sciences will evaluate Face Gaiter’s effectiveness in preventing transmission of novel coronavirus.