Future Additive Manufacturing Platform Grant

Engineers at the University of Nottingham have designed a PPE face shield with CE approval that they are 3D printing at scale for healthcare workers to use in the fight against COVID-19. Using the latest in Additive Manufacturing (3D printing) technology and materials at the University's Centre for Additive Manufacturing, and working with external collaborators, the team will deliver 5,000 of the face shields to Nottingham's NHS and community healthcare workers. Building on an open-source design of headband originally from HP, the team in the Faculty of Engineering made modifications to ensure the face shield could pass a regulatory test1 by BSI, the UK's national standards body, to meet its essential health and safety requirements which ensures the highest level of protection is provided. The face shields successfully passed the BSI tests and are CE approved1 for use as part of PPE for healthcare workers' protection against COVID-19 in both hospital and community environments. They are provided in packs to the NHS, with five replacement visors per face shield as well as instructions for use. The team have made the design and its accompanying documents 'open-source' to enable other manufacturers to produce the face shields - however, manufacturers will need to submit their product for testing to the BSI to obtain their own CE certification.