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Unbelievable Sights
Faculty Researchers Are Reinventing the Face Mask:
Invisible, Efficient and Non-polluting
PROTECTING Faculty of
Mechanical Engineering
researchers have developed
a revolutionary invisible face
mask for preventing the spread
of COVID-19, flu and other
respiratory viruses.
Regular face masks, though
effective in preventing the
spread of disease, hamper
interpersonal communication,
particularly facial recognition
and the identification of
emotions, and studies have
found that they have negative
psychological effects as a
result. Other studies show
that they also interfere with
attention, concentration and
patience, and also lead to a
dramatic rise in plastic waste.
Prof. Emeritus Moshe Shaham
and Prof. David Greenblatt,
head of the Flow Control
Laboratory, addressed these
challenges with a completely
new solution: an “air-screen”
operated within a lightweight
filter-covered unit mounted
on the visor of a cap. The air- normal oral communication and
screen protects the eyes, nose
and mouth without hampering
SHINING A year after they succeeded in creating lenses
under microgravity conditions, the members of Prof. Moran
Bercovici’s research group in the Faculty of Mechanical
Engineering demonstrated the production of round mirrors
under similar conditions. On a parabolic flight that was the
collaboration between Technion researchers and a NASA
team (headed by Dr. Edward Balaban), and with the support
of an ERC grant from the European Union, the researchers
demonstrated creating these mirrors under conditions
similar to those existing in space.
All space telescopes are based on mirrors, and the parabolic
flight experiments are intended to demonstrate the
feasibility of creating mirrors such as these in space, using
liquid metals and ionic liquids.
Prof. Bercovici thanked the members of his group and said:
“As usual, teamwork is the only way to perform experiments
like these. Omer Luria and Dr. Khaled Gommed are the
proud parents of this experiment – they led the planning,
development and execution of the experiments on the flight.
But the experiment could not have been carried out without
the unique contributions of many other lab members – Mor
Elgarisi, Israel Gabay, Jonathan Ericson, Dr. Valeri Frumkin,
Daniel Widerker, and Aliza Shultzer, who orchestrated the
complex logistics.”
More on the experiment from a personal angle can be found
in this issue’s “A Day in the Life” section.
communication, and is reusable and Anan Garzozi, students
and non-polluting. A recently in the Grand Technion Energy
published study based on Program, made an instrumental
experiments conducted in Prof. contribution to the experiments
Greenblatt’s lab demonstrated and the development of the
the air-screen’s efficacy in physics-based models of
efficiently blocking both the air-screen. The Technion
aerosols produced during recently licensed the technology
to Wisdome Wearables Ltd.,
those produced by coughing which is currently in the process
and sneezing. David Keisar of commercializing the product.
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering | MEgazine | 9