Initially, cloth for 10,000 N99 masks was developed daily, which has now been increased to 15,000. (File Photo)
The Ahmedabad Textile Industry’s Research Association (ATIRA) is helping the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) prepare around 5 lakh N99 masks approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
ATIRA’s nanotechnology department is developing and providing the filter cloth to DRDO in order to make masks that will be used by AIIMS, health ministry and defence organisations. So far, cloth for 3,85,000 masks has been supplied by ATIRA to DRDO.
ATIRA Deputy Director Deepali Plawat said that being a research organisation, converting ATIRA into a production unit was a challenge, which was successfully undertaken by the technical team of 15 members, including scientific officer, researcher and production unit experts, from the nanotechnology department.
Initially, cloth for 10,000 N99 masks was developed daily, which has now been increased to 15,000. Plawat added that due to lockdown there was difficulty in procuring the raw material but with the help of state government, GNFC and GSFC, the raw material was procured from within the state.
“Polyamide 6, a type of nylon is used in making the filter. For this, granules were required to be procured from Germany. With the help of the ministry of civil aviation and foreign ministry, 4 tonnes of granules were flown in by a passenger plane from a private firm in Germany that provided the granules free of cost,” she said.
With a filteration capacity of 99.99% the N99 mask is prepared using coated fibre. It has total five layers where between three normal layers lies the filtered layers.
