In combating COVID-19, frontline medical personnel need to wear safety goggles, face shields and other protective garment for a long time. However, the protective devices become foggy due to breathing, which affects the medical professionals in treating patients. In light of this problem, the Engineering Research Center in Biomaterials, Sichuan University and two enterprises have worked out a solution and successfully developed safety goggles and protective face shields which provide effective seal and prevent fogging. Two patents were applied for these devices and got approved by Chengdu Market Supervision and Administration Bureau for medical devices ( product record number: Sichuan 20200063 ) on March 3. The first batch of the safety goggles have been provided to medical workers at West China Hospital. The manufacturer will increase production in order to provide for more medical professionals.

Safety goggles become foggy easily. That will affect medical professionals to provide accurate treatment and care for patients. Besides, the novel coronavirus can be transmitted through droplets and aerosols which may suspend in the air and spread far with wind. Removing and wiping clean the goggles will increase the risk of infection for medical staff.

SCU Engineering Research Center in Biomaterials joined efforts with Chengdu DAXAN Innovative Medical Tech. Co., Ltd,and Chengdu Sibote Technology Co., Ltd., and worked diligently to solve this urgent problem. They optimized and sifted through coating materials, and determined to use water-based coating for the goggles. Compared with oil-based coating, water-based coatingis safer, environmentally friendly, innocuous with low viscosity and non combustion. When the temperature / humidity condition changes and water vapor becomes oversaturated to form droplets, this kind of coating can quickly absorb the droplets into the inner part of the coating, so that the coating always keeps high transparency and remains free of droplets. Being water-based, this coating has no residual organic solvent and can reduce irritation on the eyes. It is superior to the technology of anti fog spray that contains alcohol.

Thanks to the hard work of DiMeng Wu, Li Yang, Shuai Gao, Qinsheng Hu, Rifang Luo of Professor Yunbing Wang's team at the Engineering Research Center in Biomaterials, Sichuan University, the product took less than a month from research and development to clinical application. The successful development of this new technology has provided a new idea for making safe and efficient anti fog coating. It will also provide technological support for solving the problems of fog in protective masks and other equipment of medical examinations.