RI's Chen Developing Virucide for Masks in Fight Against Coronavirus - Could Be Manufactured Here

RI's Chen Developing Virucide for Masks in Fight Against Coronavirus - Could Be Manufactured Here

Rhode Island native Sandy Chen -- who GoLocal tapped in February as possibly having the "next big thing" in technology -- is changing course to innovate in the fight against coronavirus.

Chen is the founder of Graphene Composites, which "creates the strongest, lightest, most resilient materials in the world to manufacture life-changing products."

Now, he's developing virucide "graphene ink" that could have the ability to kill the virus -- and create a more effective mask for frontline health care workers, and more. 

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Chen, who recently appeared on BBC program "Look North," spoke with GoLocalProv about the latest development. 

About the Technology

Chen launched Graphene Composites in the United Kingdom four years ago and GC USA in Providence in January 2019 -- and said that the masks, if successful, could be manufactured in Rhode Island. 

"'Anti-viral' and 'virucidal' are different in that anti-viral captures the virus and holds it there until it runs out of puff, so to speak," said Chen. "A virucidal kills the virus. What we’re focusing our technology on are studies that have been done with graphene and silver nanoparticles, showing it can kill earlier versions of the Coronavirus, such as SARS."

"First we want to make sure we can make the stuff — and that it kills the virus," said Chen.  "If we have this, the obvious thing to do is to put into face masks, particularly for people on the front lines. Right now the masks that they’re wearing are good at trapping the virus but it doesn't kill it. If we can kill the virus on the masks — we can make a big difference in terms of limiting the spread."

"We have done in the past 3 weeks more R&D than is normally done in an entire year," said Chen. "In the next two weeks, we should have the first trial batches of coronavirus-killing [material] that we can test."

Potential for RI Partners

"We're getting support from Brown University and are waiting for final approval for a research project that their medical school would take to assess the virucidity," said Chen. 

"I feel for a lot of politicians. They don’t have the magic bullet," said Chen. "They’ve got to figure out if there’s a magic bullet, or half of one, and is that worth the money."

"[The masks] could definitely be produced in Rhode Island," said Chen "The existing mask-makers, the 3Ms and Honeywells., have so many people leaning on them that they have no time to breathe."

"A lot of other small businesses that are in related industries can refigure into mask production, if they can do the filtration right and stop the virus," said Chen. "Were working with as many of these companies as we can — on an open-access basis."

"We’ll figure out the commercial aspect later," said Chen. "We're all trying to do the same thing which is to stop this thing."