RGF® Environmental Group's New Conveyor Solution Sterilizes 30,000 N95 Masks Per Day to Help Healthcare Workers Combat COVID-19
PORT OF PALM BEACH, Fla. — RGF® Environmental Group Inc., a Florida-based environmental design and manufacturing company, announced a breakthrough process for sanitizing personal protective equipment (PPE) such as the N95 mask. Once sterilized, the masks can be reused multiple of times, which provides front line workers with additional supplies to better manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Jackson Services, one of the company's HVAC contractors, helped implement the solution and connected RGF with Capstone Healthcare Lab which tests for COVID-19.
Once in place and approved, the solution will sterilize upwards of 30,000 N95 masks per day. Safe sterilization allows health care workers to reuse masks safely, so they can leverage their current supplies of masks, which are in critically short supply throughout the world.
The innovative sanitization system is a modified version of an RGF food sanitation tunnel. The food sanitation tunnel is a conveyor system designed for the end of a food process line where a final anti-microbial treatment is applied before packaging or grinding.
Masks are loaded onto the solution's conveyors, which slowly move them past a combination of RGF's patented Photohydroionization® (PHI) process and germicidal UV light. PHI uses UV light targeted on a catalyst to create airborne hydrogen peroxide gases in an advanced oxidation process, and 254 NM UV light is focused on the masks to sterilize contact surfaces. The modification to the current sanitization system involves increasing the hydrogen peroxide generation to 3%, a level that is predicted to eliminate COVID-19 and other contagions.
Atlanta-based Capstone Healthcare Lab is setting up its facilities to utilize and test the new RGF sanitization system. The lab tests COVID-19 samples and conducts genetics and toxicology tests. Capstone Healthcare Lab is running short of PPE supplies and hopes to use the RGF solution to sanitize its own supplies and offer the service to local hospitals and healthcare facilities, including Piedmont Atlanta Hospital.
"The COVID-19 pandemic places extraordinary demands on healthcare workers and the PPE supply chain," said Tony Julian, vice president of business development at RGF. "We anticipate immediate and sustained demand for this solution at Capstone Healthcare Lab and other facilities that need a safe and proven method to reuse masks."
For more information, visit www.rgf.com.
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