Dear Manufacturers and Suppliers,
Please see below note regarding 3D printed masks, specifications, volumes, and supply chain coordination:
Masks can be 3D printed and it’s amazing that so many people are stepping up to offer this! Thank you for rallying your members together.
On our side, we’re trying to connect everyone together with relevant specifications, volumes, and eventually supply chain coordination. We’re building out this capability but at the moment it’s manual. We also have $50M from the federal government to invest to help companies to ramp up COVID-19 response capability.
Please find here: ( Specifications for Masks and Gowns JT 200324-1637 ) the specifications that we received today from ISED for N95 masks. I’m also pasting content from two emails I received from the Ministry today, which is feedback from the health care workers and important for anyone who is considering taking on N95’s:
“I also attach the masks specs, issues that would need to be addressed as part of using 3 d printers would include:
Ability to be sterilized, filtration ability if aiming for N95 equivalence, comfort – currently the doctors and nurses are walking out with bruises on their faces from the material n95 masks – this needs to be addressed if harder materials are going to be used; air exchange if CO2 builds up in the mask the professionals can pass out etc. Trials and licensing will likely need to be done to demonstrate the filtration, protection and sanitization elements – but I would defer to experts at HC to direct you on those matters.”
“To add to this, and particularly important for your consideration in the 3d printing project:
The masks need to be sterile for hospital use and the must meet the comfort specs given the medical staff need to be able to wear them. Some of the initial feedback is that this may be an issue wrt the 3d printing offers. Likely covered by the specs Melissa sent [Specifications for Masks and Gowns JT 200324-1637] but wanted to underline the importance as it was raised with me this afternoon. “
Other masks, such as face shields can also be 3D printed. If any of your members are looking for help with starting production, please direct them to me and I can walk them through our COVID-19 response offering. They can also find this information in the Application Guide on our website.
Please also note that we are collecting capabilities from around the country. If your members would like to fill out the EOI on the front page of our website, then they’ll get into our database to call on whenever a need presents itself, as well as accessing our eventual connection capabilities.
-Next Generation Manufacturing Canada www.ngen.ca and DIAC www.diac.ca
