Engineers at the University of Nottingham have designed a PPE face shield with CE approval, reports the university. They are also 3D printing them, “at scale”, for healthcare workers to use.

The University’s Centre for Additive Manufacturing (for the 3D printing) – also working with external collaborators – aims to deliver 5,000 of the face shields to Nottingham’s NHS and community healthcare workers.

The university says it has built on an open-source design of headband originally from HP, and the team in the Faculty of Engineering made modifications to ensure the face shield could pass a regulatory test by the BSI. Their designs can found online.

“Our primary goal was to ensure that we delivered a PPE solution that was safe and certified so that healthcare workers can have confidence in the equipment they’re using,” said Professor Richard Hague, Director of the Centre for Additive Manufacturing. “Using the flexibility of Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing) and laser cutting technology, we’ve been able to arrive at a design, get it tested and approved, and then manufactured and delivered in a very quick timeframe.”
Professor Donal McNally, Head of the Bioengineering Research Group in the Faculty of Engineering, added:

“Having a PPE solution that meets National and EU safety standards is critical for deployment within the NHS. It has been a truly outstanding achievement to go from nothing to thousands of devices being used by local doctors and hospitals in less than a month. This would not have been possible without the extraordinary efforts of local manufacturing partners and BSI.”

Face Shields

Nottingham seems to be a centre of face shield production.

We reported a fortnight ago on an initiative from the maker community group Nottingham Hackspace and the local education technology specialist Kitronik.

Dominic Morrow, the Co-Founder and Trustee of Nottingham Hackspace invited Kitronik to become involved in the project. The team created a face shield design that is cost effective, fast and straightforward to manufacture – the shields cost under 50p each to manufacture and will be supplied by Kitronik on a not for profit basis.

Their designs are freely available on the internet so other companies, schools and individuals can get involved.