Yoga Mat turns to a low cost face shield

A 7-year-old inspires professor with Eureka moment on low-cost face shield making

Release of low cost face shield

One evening he watched his 7-year-old son playing with his small yoga mat…… While this was mere fun for the boy, Dr. Arun M. Isloor, Professor and Head at Dept. of Chemistry, NITK Surathkal nearly jumped with joy as he got a clear idea on preparing face shield.

Prof Isloor took a Yoga Mat, a polyester transparent sheet, a synthetic adhesive, and Velcro and prepared a face shield with a total cost of Rs 12!!

One of the important reasons for the rapid spread of the COVID-19 across the globe is due to the lack of availability of Personal Protecting Equipments (PPEs) such as hand gloves, protective coverage, masks, face shield, etc. Also due to zooming up of their price, PPEs are out of reach of the common people.

To solve this problem, Dr. Isloor and his team has come out with an economical, reusable face shield using locally available low-cost materials.

Two months ago, in March, Dr. Isloor saw his Malaysian collaborators wearing face shields made of an elastic band, which was not only expensive but inconvenient for wearing a long time.

“I have used a yoga mat, polyester transparent sheet, a synthetic adhesive, and velcro tape for these face shields. These could be used at least 90-100 days and can be reused just by giving soap water wash or using 3-4 droplets of hand sanitizer,” Prof Isloor said.

In the past, Dr. Isloor was involved in the production and distribution of Hand sanitizer. He also had presented the prototype ZRO COV, an Ultraviolet radiation-based disinfection chamber. Soon after the reports from NITK, few other government organizations including DRDO, IITs have reported similar prototypes.

Also read: NITK Professor develops ‘ZERO-COV ’ sterilizing chamber for residences and offices

NITK Director Prof K Uma Maheshwar Rao released 300 such face shields on May 9th and handed them over to Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner Sindhu B Rupesh.

Prof Uma Maheshwar Rao

“ NITK is actively involved in the fight against COVID-19 and assisting district administration and society through various activities such as Free distribution of hand sanitizer, 3D printed facial mask, etc,” Prof Rao said.

Deputy Drug controller Ramakanth, Additional Drug controller Shankar Naik, Registrar K. Ravindranth, Dean faculty welfare Prof. M.S Bhat, Joint Registrar Y. Ramomohan, Dr. Lakshmi, Research scholars and volunteers Praveen and Syed Ibrahim were present during the event.