U of S engineering students design innovative N95 mask

An engineering team at the University of Saskatchewan is on the front line of innovation in medical equipment to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group has designed a new mask with a removable filter. It can also be made with a 3D printer.

Erik Olson, an engineering graduate student, is a part of the team. He joined Gormley to talk about the project.

He explained the advantages their model holds over a typical N95 mask.

“There’s a removable filter component that can take pretty much any material that you would want to put in it… one possibility being let’s re-purpose something that behaves like an N95 filter but isn’t originally used for that,” he said.

“The other being, ‘well, what if we could take one N95 mask, cut it up into three pieces, and get three uses instead of one?'”

This would allow materials and masks to be conserved.

The project is currently in the testing stage. After that, it will be sent to the Saskatchewan Health Authority for final approval. Olson estimates that process could take about a month.

When he was asked by a professor to join the team, it was an easy decision.

“It’s a way to get involved and help, and definitely something to keep your mind and hands busy in an otherwise trying time,” he said.

“We love solving problems.”