Developing Personal Protective Equipment Against COVID-19

Bhattacharjee, S.; Singh, H.

In this current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, a huge loss of human lives has been faced by the world. The situation seems to be uncontrollable both because of the widespread of the virus and contamination of surroundings due to it, as well as a longer period of lockdown has emerged new social and economic problems. So, it is advised by the experts that this situation has to be dealt with by taking care of many precautions in mind while carrying out our daily life routine. On the other hand, frontline workers, policemen, and doctors need to protect themselves even after being exposed to the affected patients. For their safety and others, personal protective equipment (PPE) is the safeguard in this situation. The prime aim of PPE is to break the chain and avoid human to human contact. To develop these PPEs, scientists and experts have been designing and manufacturing kits consisting of various types of masks, face visors, gloves, glasses, shoe covers, surgical suits, and caps. Keeping the dimensions of the novel coronavirus in mind, i.e., 80–220 nm, the PPE kits are made to allow ventilation to the body along with the sole purpose of protection. For this, various methods of manufacturing these types of equipment are adapted, especially 3D printing is widely used for making face visors. The potential applications of nanomaterials came into the picture due to their properties such as antibacterial, hydrophobicity, transparency, and flexibility. Here, the chapter discusses the development of such PPEs for the protection of frontline workers and doctors along with the consequences followed by their usage. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.