Dr. Carol Lin, Associate Professor in SEE, is coordinating a project on reducing the transmission of the novel coronavirus and other infectious diseases using food waste-derived medical textiles via electrospinning for healthcare apparel and personal protective equipment (PPE).

“PPE is currently a hot topic,” said Dr. Lin, whose project attracted HK$5.5M in the one-off collaborative exercise. “It is probably the most discussed and emotive subject for front-line healthcare workers who work with patients with the coronavirus disease.” The aim is to develop food waste-derived non-woven medical textiles via electrospinning for healthcare apparel to limit the transmission of Covid-19. Electrospinning is a manufacturing technique using electric force to draw together charged nano-fibre threads. The fabricated non-woven medical textiles will be examined by standard methods to ensure the performance of the textiles meet the expected standard for medical mask materials. “Technology-integrated biorefineries focus on the material recovery approach to resolving the twin problems of the global waste burden and severe PPE shortages. This is an evolving area where research and development is urgently needed,” Dr. Lin explained.

In total, funding worth HK$19M has been secured for four highly competitive collaborative research projects into Covid-19 led by scholars at CityU. Dr. Lin’s project is one of those. SEE faculty members Prof. Chak K. Chan, Dr. Shauhrat Chopra, Dr. Walid Daoud and Dr. Edwin Tso, together with four external collaborators from The University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Southern Medical University in Guangzhou are co-principal investigators of this project.

(From left) Prof. Sun Dong (BME), Dr. Carol Lin (SEE), Prof. Yan Houmin (MS) and Prof. Wan Wai-yee (SLW).

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About the Project.