/The COVID-19 pandemic has ravaged the globe in 2020, with a disproportional effect on the working class:healthcare workers, emergency services personnel (police, fire), workers in homes for the aged, childcareworkers, cleaners, workers in the hospitality industry, public transport, and taxi drivers, workers in retail sectorsand shopping malls are all at increased risk of exposure from interactions with the public. The US Departmentof Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has (OSHA) mandated using personal protectiveequipment (PPE) for all workers, most of which is single-use and disposable. A recent review of PPE medicalwaste during the pandemic reports an increase from 40 tons/day to 240 tons/day in China, a 350% increase(with an added 925 t/month) in Spain, and a two-fold increase in India (including an additional 11.4 tons ofhazardous waste from households). These volumes of contaminated waste have exceeded the capacity of wastemanagement systems in many countries, resulting in improper disposal of used PPE with infectious potentialand pollution of the environment with microplastics. Consequently, a secondary environmental crisis now loomsdue to an estimated 129 billion discarded facemasks/month. A decentralized solution to effectively sanitize usedPPE for re-use is essential for an environmentally sound long-term response to infection risk in the workplace.Fathhome has developed a waterless ozone-based device to sanitize items quickly and efficiently in theworkplace. Our technology was able to reduce SARS-CoV-2 infectious particle counts to levels >7 log-fold lowerthan experimental controls with a 20-minute sanitization cycle in proof-of-concept experiments. Similarly, viableEscherichia coli on fabric was reduced by >99% in our device. To advance towards market readiness, ouroverall goal for this project is to tune further our device's microbicidal effects against SARS-CoV-2 and bacterialpathogens (Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and ensure overall safe emissions for indooruse. We will briefly expose SARS-CoV-2 and bacterial pathogens spotted onto masks and face shield materialto a single sanitization cycle and enumerate surviving organisms. Our device operates under proprietaryvacuum-based technology to ensure ozone emissions are contained and uses a catalytic ozone scrubber toconverter O3 to O2 at the end of the cycle. However, ozone is toxic to humans at microbiocidal concentrations.This application's main effort will be concentrated on engineering and implementing ozone emission safeguards(including robust testing of our catalytic converter) to ensure safe device operation. In the past 25 years, 15major global outbreaks of airborne infectious diseases have occurred, and this will not be the last pandemic tothreaten the American worker. Implementing technologies like Fathhome's ozone-based system in workplacesnow will allow the safe re-use of PPE in the case of future pandemics, balancing the need for safety andenvironmental sustainability.
Public Health Relevance Statement: NARRATIVE
The increased use of disposable personal protective equipment (PPE) in the workplace has caused a secondary
environmental crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Effectively sanitizing used PPE for re-use could balance
the need for worker safety with environmental sustainability during the current pandemic and in the future.
Fathhome has developed a waterless gas-based device for sanitizing PPE and other personal items quickly and
efficiently in the workplace. This project will advance our device towards market readiness by demonstrating
efficacy against SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens and finalize the engineering of ozone emission safeguards.
Project Terms:
