Progress 09/01/20 to 04/30/21

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for the Filter-Hat in the original USDA Phase I SBIR (Small Business and Innovative Research) project was to help rural and agricultural communities and this is still the primary focus in the proposed Phase II SBIR project. However, the project application focus has shifted from protecting people in these communities from COVID-19 infection caused by inhaled bio-aerosols to other inhaled hazards also described in the original proposal. This new focus includes protection from pollen allergens, pesticide aerosols, herbicide aerosols, blowing dirt, combustion smoke, manure bio-aerosols and many other inhalable hazards. The new focus on most food processing and agricultural workplace related inhaled hazards will still provide good protection from all COVID-19 variants in the future if this becomes a problem. Filter hat applications, workplace testing and filter testing is being discussed with OSHA and CDC/NIOSH and other agencies that may have a regulatory interest or concern in the new product development. Regulatory compliance will ensure that the product will reach the widest target market with a safe product. The Filter-Hat also provides protection from sun exposure and heat exhaustion for the agricultural workers in the field. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We have met all the goals and milestone timelines for the project and even exceeded most of the original goals. Although, the USDA Phase I SBIR proposal only mentioned 3 prototypes we were able to exceed this by completing 7 prototypes of the Filter-Hat and 3 more R&D designs almost completed. Some prototypes with high efficiency filters exceeded all our expectations allowing us to set a much higher goal for the Phase II USDA SBIR project. The new innovative Filter-Hat designs tested in the Phase I project were able to reach the major goal to develop a low cost Filter-Hat that provides impact head protection, aerosol/bio-aerosol protection and other airborne hazard protection for a person's entire head including a person's eyes and respiratory system. The project also met all the project objectives as described below. The first objective (1) was to prepare prototypes of the Filter-Hat for testing that have low cost battery powered submicron air filtration systems integrated into a comfortable hard hat with an aerosol proof visor and filter drop cloth to protect the filter hat users entire head space. This objective was met with great success. To optimize the best design we used the Filter-Hats in difficult work conditions such as cold air, heavy lifting, working in tight spaces, jobs requiring lots of communication, working in high winds/rain, working in high noise environments, working in sunshine on very hot days, working in forest fire smoke, working in high dust, pollen and mold areas, work requiring eye/hearing protection, and many other demanding jobs. This allowed us to improve each prototype version of the filter hats bringing us close to the low cost mass production version that can be produced in a Phase II SBIR project. The success of the projects shows that we were able to overcome many important and difficult engineering hurdles that were worked on in the USDA Phase I SBIR project. For example, one of the projects greatest challenges was acoustic engineering to reduce sound for good communication. We made many prototype Filter-Hats to test acoustics talking to people in retail locations, banks, and local farmers. Many new prototypes were developed to improve comfortable fit for long work days and the new prototypes are a significant improvement over filter hat drawings in the Phase I SBIR proposal with a much lower center of gravity and low profile. Phase I designs have been totally proven so Phase II can focus on production R&D. We compared our powered air filter hard hat visor combination with other similar combination systems and demonstrated many advantages such as very light weight, very low sound level and battery life of more than 24 hours on a charge. Final prototypes met all proposed goals such as comfortable use all day, long time on a low cost rechargeable battery, great for bad weather, and low cost design for Phase II commercialization. The second objective (2) was to exceed COVID-19 personal protection of N95, N99, and N100 disposable respirators even if they are combined with a visor or goggles. This goal was easy to exceed because even the best face fitted disposable respirators have significant face leakage of aerosols around the mask and low rated masks like the N95 also have significant hazardous aerosols coming through the mask. Simulated aerosols (NaCl aerosols) were measured on the inside and outside of the Aerophase Filter-Hat prototypes using an Aerophase engineered test manikin to demonstrate exhaled air filtration efficacy. The results show that Phase I goals were exceeded based on either typical disposable respirator leakage or tested ratings. It was a third objective (3) of this project to test aerosol exit protection of people near the Filter-Hat user in case the user is infected with COVID-19 or other bio-aerosol spreading disease. This objective includes exceeding N type respirators with or without exhale valves that have significant face leakage of bio-aerosols and/or exhale valve release of bio-aerosols. This highly effective Filter-Hat will protect the food processing or agricultural worker from catching or spreading bio-aerosol contagious diseases at work and indirectly protect the community they live in. Although exhaled bio-aerosols is a low priority in the Phase II SBIR project given the widespread use of vaccines, measurements in the Phase I SBIR project demonstrate the Aerophase filter cloth can capture more than 99% of exhaled bio-aerosols in certain prototypes. Simulated aerosols (non-bio-aerosols) were measured on the inside and outside of PPE using an Aerophase engineered test manikin to demonstrate exhaled air filtration efficacy. The results show that Phase I goals were exceeded. This Filter-Hat may also be used to protect the farmer that is often exposed to pollen allergens, pesticide aerosols, herbicide aerosols, blowing dirt, silica dust, and manure bio-aerosols that could be filtered out with the Filter-Hat. We were able to provide great protection for these inhaled hazards because the filter has was developed and tested in an agricultural environment. Using the same manikin test system we demonstrated greater than 99.9% inhaled air filtration efficacy for many prototypes. A forth objective (4) was to encourage widespread use of the Filter-Hat in these areas by having savings from frequently disposed respirator masks (N95 masks, etc.) alone pay for the Filter-Hat with a long filter life and low cost Filter-Hat production. This was a challenging goal to meet because the US has been flooded with low cost filter masks however with very long filter life and long battery life we were able to provide a cheaper solution to low cost disposable masks. Furthermore, the Aerophase Filter-Hat has the additional feature of 100x better respiratory protection, eye protection, head protection and lower environmental impact with much less waste to the landfill. The data also provides proof that current rated respiratory protection may be totally inadequate for many agricultural operations. Significant workplace protection factor data collected in the Phase II SBIR project will specifically focus on the rural and agricultural testing of many types of respiratory protection that may work well in an office or lab environment but very poorly in many agricultural environments. The Phase II SBIR will provide new data on unknown respiratory hazards for farmers and rural communities and possible mitigation or protection strategies.

Publications