SCIENTISTS at the University of Reading are using artificial sweetener to provide reassurance to frontline workers.
A team from the University of Reading’s Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences have created a sweetened solution that is sprayed on the outside of face mask to test the fit and level of protection.
When the saccharine solution is sprayed, if the wearer has a sweet smell or taste, this warns them that the mask is unsuitable and will not provide proper protection against infection from the coronavirus.
The smell or taste comes from the water droplets seeping through, or getting around the protective equipment.
Professor Gunter Kuhnle, a food scientist leading the work at the University of Reading, said: “We are really glad to have opportunities to support our local healthcare heroes to help them in their work in the pandemic.
“In the Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, we have experience in making sterile mixtures and we have a fully-equipped pilot plant, a mini ‘food factory’ that normally allows us to create food products to the highest standards of hygiene and quality.
“This allowed us to create the mix in the kinds of quantities that can be used by hospitals as they test the fit of their protective equipment.
“We have overcome the challenges of finding the right levels of sweetener to use in the mixture and keeping it sterile, meaning we are now able to produce enough mixture on a weekly basis to help our colleagues working to save lives at the hospital.”
Professor Kuhnle and Dr Sameer Khalil Ghawi have been making weekly batches of the solution after the Royal Berkshire Hospital said that there had been shortages of solutions to carry out ‘fit tests’.
Dr Janet Lippett, chief medical officer at the Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Initiatives like this one make such a difference and are a real boost for our teams.
“The coronavirus pandemic has posed many challenges and it’s really rewarding to have a solution to one of them being produced by our neighbours at the University.”
