Metal Tech News - The Elements of Innovation Discovered

After five months of optimization and testing, Zen Graphene Solutions Ltd. says it has developed a graphene-based ink that is 99% effective at killing the virus responsible COVID-19.

Applied to materials used to make face masks and other personal protective equipment, this virucidal ink shows the potential to help prevent the spread COVID-19 as the world braces for a second wave of the disease.

Earlier this year, the company sent samples of its graphene-based ink to a biosafety level three lab at Western University's ImPaKT facility in Ontario for testing.

Two graphene-based ink samples at different concentrations were applied to N95 mask filtration material and then exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for COVID-19.

In three separate tests, all of which were verified with duplicate testing, 99% of the virus was inactivated when applied to the graphene ink treated materials.

Maybe even more significantly, the second round of tests was on material that was treated with the graphene-based virucidal ink 35 days earlier, demonstrating the lasting effectiveness of the treatment.

All testing was conducted to meet the standards of ISO, an international standard-setting organization based in Switzerland.

"These recent results have dramatically exceeded our expectations with our ink achieving 99% virucidal activity against the SARS-CoV-2 virus 35 days after production of the samples," said Zen Graphene Solutions CEO Francis Dube.

The research and development of this antiviral ink formulation was conducted entirely by ZEN's research team in the Ontario facility using a graphene product produced from Albany Pure Graphite, which comes from an Ontario deposit owned by the company.

"I am very proud of our research and development team for their exceptional work in developing this novel formulation," said Dube.

ZEN Graphene is now developing plans to bring its patent-pending graphene-based virucidal ink to commercial production including working with regulatory authorities and government agencies to fast-track this product to Canadian and global markets to help the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We are excited about the role our ink can play in the fight against this global pandemic and are moving quickly to mobilize our resources to bring this product to market," said Dube.

ZEN is expanding the testing of its graphene-based ink formula to include pathogenic bacteria and fungi and will report on these tests as soon as the results are available.

Manufacturing companies interested in treating materials with ZEN Graphene's antiviral ink or further details of the report on the COVID-19 testing can contact the company at [email protected].