EB sterilization of large areas of textile materials

The European Commission has launched INNO4COV-19. This is 6.1 million Euro project to support the marketing of new products to combat COVID-19 throughout Europe over the next two years. The Fraunhofer Institute for Organic Electronics, Electron Beam and Plasma Technology FEP is contributing its know-how in sterilization using accelerated electrons.

During pandemic events like COVID-19, MERS, SARS or Ebola, a substantial shortage of sterile materials such as face masks and other personal protective equipment for medical uses was observed during to peak demands. The idea is to sterilize the raw material generally produced in non-sterile conditions rather than the finished product. Fraunhofer FEP will contribute their roll-to-roll equipment and electron beam technology for the purpose of large area sterilization of textile materials to the INNO4COV-19 project.

Project manager Dr. Steffen Günther of Fraunhofer FEP explained: “INNO4COV-19 will establish and verify a process chain for high throughput (4500 m²/h) electron beam sterilization of fabric material in roll-form in a single TRL 7 pilot machine to allow efficient manufacturing of sterile face masks and other fabric based sterile products without the need to sterilize the final product.”

See Fraunhofer’s press release here.