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Stick with Me

The "Maya" adhesive patch sticks to the face mask,
traps the viruses inside and eliminates them

oronavirus is transmitted through aerosol droplets. These are emitted through

C sneezing, coughing, and breathing, and are the reason for the mandatory

face masks required of people outside their homes. In hospitals and medical

centers, where the air might be heavily contaminated with the virus, standard surgical

masks worn by medical teams cannot provide complete protection against viruses, such

as the coronavirus, whose size is about 100 nanometers. And while N95 face masks,

used in hospitals, are considerably more efficient, they also make breathing extremely

difficult over time and are significantly more expensive than surgical masks.

To better protect medical staff, a special adhesive patch was developed to upgrade

the standard face mask. Dubbed "Maya",the sticker, which is affixed to the mask’s

external side, contains a protective filter composed of nanofibers and biocide agents

(disinfectants). Produced using polymer nanofiber electrospinning,

“This development the sticker was developed in the research group headed by Prof.

is already being sold Eyal Zussman, Head of the Nano Engineering Group at the Faculty of

and used in several Mechanical Engineering, in collaboration with Prof. Samer Srouji, Head
countries and we of the Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Center at the Galilee Medical Center.
"We identified the need for an effective and low‫־‬priced solution to
aim to go into serial enhance the safety of the surgical face masks, which are the most
production so that we common type of mask serving medical teams", Prof. Zussman says. "On
the basis of our extensive knowledge in the area of designing fiber- and
can supply medical filter‫־‬based systems, we reached the conclusion that we can quickly
staff with a means of upgrade the mask."
effectively protecting However, Zussman clarifies the problem is not a simple one. "We
wanted to examine the possibility of both increasing the mask’s
themselves against
coronavirus”

filtering capacity and neutralizing the viruses that do reach the mask,"

he explains. "Because users breath through the mask, no harmful or allergenic materials

are allowed."

The result of their efforts is impressive. When the Maya sticker comes into contact with

droplets, it absorbs them, and the viruses, including coronavirus, are trapped inside

and are neutralized by the biocide. Thus the sticker provides double protection‫־‬limiting

airborne viral transmission by COVID–19 patients and preventing the virus from entering

the user’s respiratory system.

Following the rapid development process, the Technion has licensed "Maya" to an

Israeli company, which produces and markets it worldwide – to Europe, North and South

America, and the Far East. "We hope that in the near future, we will be able to expand

the use of the sticker to additional pathogens, such as antibiotics‫־‬resistant bacteria

and other viruses," Zussman says. "The coronavirus crisis will end at some point, when

a vaccine is found, but antibiotics‫־‬resistant bacteria in medical centers constitute a

chronic global problem – which we aim to address."

6 | MEgazine | Faculty of Mechanical Engineering