Page 78 - Innovation Delaware 2021

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
W.L. Gore & Associates: Creating a Mask Like No Other
When the COVID-19 pandemic began its stranglehold on the nation in March 2020, the folks at W.L. Gore were prepared to help keep essential workers supplied with the equipment they needed
to stay safe while helping others. For a while, at least.
The Newark-based company stepped forward immediately
to donate materials it had in stock that would support the manufacturing of N95 masks. But there was a problem.
“That was a brief exercise, because we had limited materials on the shelf,” says DAN LASH, a product specialist who has been at Gore for 25 years.
By May, the supplies for donation were gone, and Gore had to pivot quickly. It began to wonder how it could adapt some of its existing technology to create a filtration system that would be the centerpiece of masks. By July, it was accepting purchase orders for the result of a team effort that included the filtration, textile and medical products divisions.
“We were able to pull together people to understand the problem, solve it and execute the solution,” says Lash, part of the Filtration Business Group in Gore’s Performance Solutions Division.
Many of those who manufacture N95 masks use what is known as “meltblown” materials for filtration. Because they have an electrostatic property, “charged particles are attracted to fibers in meltblown materials” and cannot get through, according to Lash. The filtration equipment Gore originally donated had a meltblown component.
But what the company created last spring and summer did not. In 1969, Bob Gore, son of the W.L. Gore
founders, discovered a material known as expanded polytetrafluoroethylene, or ePTFE. Since that time, ePTFE
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has been the foundation for
most Gore products, and the company has developed countless applications for it. When Gore turned its attention to helping boost national N95 mask production, it used a variant of ePTFE to make it happen.
“We do not rely on electrostatics with ePTFE,” Lash says. “Instead of [virus] particles being attracted to
the meltdown materials, our material physically blocks the particles. It’s a mechanical process.”
Think of what Gore created as something of a sandwich, with fabric surrounding and bonded to the ePTFE laminate. Although it blocks the particles from entering a wearer’s mouth and nose, the product retains its breathability.
“We take the PTFE polymer, stretch it and give it a porosity,” Lash says. “The finished product is a laminate membrane in the middle with textiles on either side of it that are bonded to it so it doesn’t impede airflow.”
A variety of companies contacted Gore about taking the concept and adapting it to their masks. Gore eventually developed an agreement with one and expects to continue the relationship as long as it is fruitful.
“As long as the business remains attractive, we’ll continue to support it,” Lash says. “It is good now, and if it remains good on the horizon, we’ll continue to participate.”
So, thanks to some quick work at the beginning of the pandemic, Gore may have found a long-term business line.
—Michael Bradley
DAN LASH