Salt Coating on Surgical Masks Inhibits Virus
April 18, 2017 | Terry Sharrer
It has been 99 years since the Great Influenza pandemic at the end of World War I. Old pictures show people wearing masks for self-protection, not knowing that the masks were next to worthless in protecting against viruses. Now, researchers at the University of Alberta have come up with a salt coating for masks that does kill virus. “The deactivation system uses common sodium chloride salt to coat the filtration unit. On contact, aerosol droplets absorb the salt, and the virus is exposed to increasing concentrations as the droplet evaporates, suffering fatal physical damage when the salt returns to its crystalized state.” It might we worth musing over why this discovery took a century in coming. MORE
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