BACHELOR OF ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONICS AND CHEMICAL

ENGINEERING WITH HONOURS

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Module Code: Module Title: Lecturer:

EGE 3103 Engineer & Society Ir. Ts. Azri Adi B Arbai
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Signed by,

Priyadharshini
Student Name: Ti Teng Hao Kanason
Student ID Number: SUKD1701802 SUKD1700608
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 MARKING & ASSESSMENT

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 EGE 3103
Engineers and Society
Bachelor of Chemical Engineering with
Honours
Assignment
Title: Engineers’ Contribution to Society

Surgical Mask

Name Student ID
No
1 Ti Teng Hao SUKD1701802
2 Priyadharshini A/P Kanason SUKD1700608
3 Lee Chong Zheng SUKD1601063
4 Gloria A/P Anthony SUKD1600948

Lecturer’s Name: Ir. Ts. Azri Adi B Arbai

Submission date: 27th November 2020
1.0 Introduction.

In this era of globalization, engineers had truly contributed greatly to the society by
designing, resolving, develop creative idea and reengineer the product for a greater use to
the needs of society. For instance, engineers had contributed the society by producing the
safety mask through several lab test and analysis of the product by chemical engineers,
design and control philosophy of the mask production plant by project and design
engineers, on site project construction by mechanical and civil engineers as well as all
walk of engineers in the relevant field. The safety face mask contributed greatly to the
society especially during this catastrophe of virus outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) had announced worldwide that COVID-19
outbreak was a global pandemic on March 12th 2020. The COVID-19 virus is transmitted
mainly through the channel such as small airborne droplets emitted by the infected
people, especially when sneezing, coughing or talking where the airborne droplets would
be spread vastly.

Figure 1: Ways coronavirus transmit (Source: Anderson, E., 2020)

Hence, the invention of the safety face mask by engineers can help to prevent the
further transmission of this COVID-19 virus. The safety face masks have several types
and to be exact and shows the importance on the pandemic control such as medical face
mask act as a conventional mask and is one of the most significant products to break this
virus transmission chain.[ CITATION EUR20 \l 17417 ]
 The medical face mask which also known as surgical mask is an official medical
protective equipment for covering the first source of transmission which are mouth, nose
and chin to ensure a barrier that limits the transmission of the infective agents which are
the bacteria and virus from the affected people to the unaffected people. There are
different types of masks with their own specific function to overcome the specific target
and has the same purpose which protection against infectious viruses.

The surgical face mask which is also known as medical mask is commonly used by
the society in the current pandemic situation to keep themselves from being infected by
the virus. Then, the N95 face mask was designed to offer more protection barrier than the
surgical mask so that it can filter out both the large and small particles when the person
wearing it inhales. From the name itself, the N95 mask was engineered and designed to
block 95% of the very small particles. Other than that, the cloth mask could help in the
pandemic situation by trapping droplets that are released when the person that wear it
talks, coughs or sneezes. Therefore, people who wear cloth masks can also reduce the
spread of virus from people who have COVID-19 but do not realize it. However, the cloth
mask is less effective in filtering the inhaled air compared to the conventional surgical
mask. The cloth mask is used as an alternative when the supply of surgical mask decrease
as well as to save cost as it can be washed and reused.[ CITATION May20 \l 17417 ]

Figure 2: Types of face mask (Source: Anderson, E., 2020)

The local industry that produce the face mask such as MEDICOS SDN BHD has
designed and made the face mask with finest and high-quality materials which provide
the optimum level of performance in protection, breathability and comfort to the wearers.
The engineers in this company had contributed the society adequate amounts of surgical
mask by enforcing the production line and with the use of latest technology to produce
the suitable 3 layers filter surgical face mask. The conventional 3 layers surgical face
 masks are made out of the non-woven fabric which allows it to filter the small and big
particles and permeate air flow. The common material to produce face mask is
polypropylene.[ CITATION MED20 \l 17417 ]

Figure 3: 3ply face surgical mask design by Medicos(Source: Medicos,2020)

2.0 Objective of the safety surgical face mask

The main objective of this safety surgical face mask is to help to prevent the COVID-
19 virus outbreak to the whole world. This virus is extremely dangerous and infectious as
it can easily transmit from one person to another easily. Hence the production of face
mask has played a vital role to tackle this issue.

Figure 4: Masks reduce airborne transmission of virus (Source:Face Coverings and COVID-19. What
People With Asthma Need To Know. - Propeller Health, 2020)
The objectives of face mask in order to reduce and prevent the transmission of virus are
such as below:

1) Masks could act as a simple barrier in preventing the respiratory droplets from
traveling in the air and indirectly transmitted to other people.
2) For instance, when the person wearing the surgical face mask coughs, sneezes,
talks, or raises their voice, the masks has a filtration rate up to 89% of the air
where it helps to prevent the bacteria or virus being dispersed out as fluid into the
air as it is very infectious. This can also be termed as source control.
3) The main objective of face mask is very much related to the current control
towards the pandemic outbreak as Covid-19 virus can be transmitted through
mouth, nose water droplets.
4) Surgical mask is able to prevent and reduce the spray of the droplets by covering
over the mouth and nose.[ CITATION CDC20 \l 17417 ]
5) Facemask also enable people to be partial socialize as it can help people to
communicate face to face within the distance of 6 feet.
6) Surgical mask also has an ability to protect wearer from infectious particles up to
0.02 µm.

The above statement proved that masks can prevent the pandemic outbreak because it
is made of different materials and designs which influence their filtering capability. There
are some standards which are used to evaluate the masks in term of healthcare settings as
well as personal protective equipment (PPE) efficiency. The ability of the mask is to
protect the wearer from infectious particles. Particle sizes through speeches are on the
order of 1 µm while typical definitions of droplet size are 5 µm-10 µm. Generally,
household materials had filtration rate between a 49% and 86% for 0.02 µm exhaled
particles, whereas surgical masks filtered 89% of those particles.
 Figure 5: This figure shows how far droplets travel (Source: Chua et al., 2020)

When considering the relevance of studies to the masks as protection for the wearer, it
is important to take into consideration that masks effectiveness are underestimated for
source control. When someone is breathing, speaking, or coughing, only a small amount
of droplets coming out of the mouth is in aerosol form. Many of these droplets will then
evaporate and turn into aerosolized particles that are 3 to 5 fold-smaller. Wearing a mask
as the source control can ultimately prevent this process from occurring, because the big
droplets dehydrate into smaller aerosol particles that float in the air for longer period.

In a study by Jeremy et al (2020) on 9 influenza patients, surgical and N95 masks

appeared to be equally effective in blocking droplets, given that no influenza droplets
could be detected by reverse transmission-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) on sample
plates at 20 cm distance of the coughing patients, while the influenza was detectable
without mask for 7 out of the 9 patients.[CITATION Jer20 \l 17417 ]

3.0 Details description of the surgical masks

Surgical face masks are mainly made up from non-woven fabric. The non-woven
fabric has a better bacteria filtration and air permeability as well as less slippery when
compared to the normal woven cloth. However, the primary material that is used to
produce mask is polypropylene which has the density of 20 or 25 grams per square meter
(gsm). Other material such as polystyrene, polycarbonate, polyethylene or polyester can
also be used to make mask. The 20-gsm face mask material is actually made out from the
spun bond process.
 Figure 6: Spunbond and melt-blown process (Source: Chua et al., 2020)

This spunbond process involves the extruding of melted plastic onto the conveyor.
Then, the material will be extruded in a web, where the strands bond with each other and
cool off the same time. The 25-gsm fabric can be made through melt blown technology
which is pretty similar to the spun bound process where the plastic is being extruded
through a die with hundreds of the small nozzles. The extruded plastics are then blown
with the hot air to become tiny fibres and then cooled and bonded together on a conveyor
for packaging work. The fibres that made up the face mask are less than a micron in
diameter.

The surgical face masks are made from multi-layered structure and covered both sides
with a layer of textile bonded fabric with non-woven. The non-woven are cheaper in cost
and easier to clean due to the disposable nature of non-woven which are made up from
three to four layers. Generally, face masks are made by machine in the production line
that assembles the non-woven from bobbins, welds the layers together by ultrasonic, and
the mask with nose strips, ear loops, other pieces were stamped. [ CITATION Bri19 \l 17417 ]
The normal 3-ply surgical mask of type 2 has the following description of the product
characteristics:
  Medical Device Class I

 3-ply (PP spun bond inner and outer layers, PP melt blown filter layer between non-
woven fabric)
 Latex free, fiberglass free
 Bacterial Filtration Efficiency (BFE): ≥ 98%*
 Breathability (differential pressure Pa/cm²): < 40*

In order to prove the efficiency of mask with respect to the current COVID-19
pandemic, they masks has to be tested to make sure the masks plays a safety purpose in
various situations. There are three main tests that have to be conducted before selling the
masks into the market:

1. Bacteria filtration efficiency in vitro (BFE). This method is done by shooting an

aerosol with staphylococcus aureus bacteria at the mask at 28.3 litres per minute. This
method is to find out how much the mask can trap bacteria’s in term of percentage as
it’s supposed to.
2. Particle Filtration Efficiency.  This is also known as the latex particle challenge.
This test involves spraying an aerosol form of polystyrene microspheres as to ensure
the ability of mask to filter the size of the particle.
3. Breathing resistance. This is to ensure the mask will hold on its own shape and have
enough ventilation while the wearer breathes. Breathing resistance mainly is tested by
shooting a flow of air at it, and measure the difference in air pressure on both sides of
the mask.[ CITATION Bri19 \l 17417 ]

4.0 Importance of engineers in the production of surgical masks

As the whole world fights to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic that has been arising
since 2019, surgical mask, face shields and N95 respirators are all in short supply. Several
engineering and manufacturing companies are making contributions to the society in their
own ways. Nowadays, everyone have to compulsorily wear a mask while going out. Thus,
manufacturers of mask in industry are racing against the time to produce new mask for an
increase in the demand of masks. So, engineers could help build new face mask industry,
including by designing and manufacturing buildings using offsite construction. Besides that,
engineers can help in improving the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the health care
and frontline workers in Malaysia. This is because most of the frontline workers are only
provided a 3 ply mask because it is the most economical and reliable option available
currently but this mask are one size fits all. So, some frontline workers will feel
uncomfortable because everyone’s face size is slightly different. For example, some of it
looks quite basic and loose therefore, they need careful fitting to work properly. Thus,
engineers can help in improving the mask by including atmosphere control, filtering and
decontamination. [ CITATION Jos20 \l 2052 ]

Figure 7: Mask sizes and measurements (Source: Flaig,2020)

Besides that, engineers are important in implementation of automation and quality

controls measures of the mask production. This is because a low quality mask will not able to
protect the wearer and lead to increased risk of people infected by Covid-19 virus. Thus,
engineers will do the quality control inspection services for the mask product. For example,
to keep track of the materials that are sample to test the specifications are used in production
of face mask, they also witness the test for specification of the masks at the factory and verify
final random AQL face mask quality inspection.
 Figure 8: Quality check that has to be done for different types of masks (Source: Robertson, 2020)

Moreover, engineers are able to design software and work with various production
systems. For example, engineers will use the software to control the machine system,
temperature, pressure as well as the flowrate in order to produce a perfect mask. This is due
to the reason that engineers have some training about the machine operation and they will
provide some new idea to minimize the cost and the time taken for the mask production.
Moreover, engineers are very important in mask production because they are able to decide
which machines, select appropriate materials and design complete fabrication process for the
mask production. Thus, an engineer’s team are built to help with product development,
sourcing materials and equipment as well as planning the production plant.

Last but not least, engineers can design a reusable, silicone rubber face mask. Ideally, a
health care frontline worker would use another new mask each time while they see a different
patient, but shortages of these masks have made doctors and nurses to wear the masks for a
longer period exceeding the time that they are meant to be worn. Thus, engineer set out to
design a mask that could be safely sterilized and reused many times. The proposed mask is
made out of durable silicone rubber that can be moulded and manufactured using injection
molding system, which is widely used in factories around the world. The mask also includes
a filter that is similar to the N95 filter, but requires lesser N95 material than a normal N95
mask. The N95 masks that frontliners used to wear to protect against exposure to SARS-
CoV-2 and other viruses are made from polypropylene fibers that are specifically designed to
filter and trap out tiny viral particles such as COVID-19 virus since they are the one that are
more prone to the virus as there are dealing with the infected patients.. Thus, this reusable
mask is very helpful for the frontline workers so that they don’t need to wear the 3 ply mask.
5.0 Roles of engineers in developing face masks

Face masks is a flat cloth that can be worn on the face using the straps attached to it.
Lately, face masks has been a daily to bring item for everyone around the world to prevent
the spread of respiratory disease which is spreading known as coronavirus. Therefore, face
masks has been a crucial and very important PPE that has to be worn by everyone to prevent
transmission of Covid-19 virus.

Engineers play a vital role in producing mask and any products. This is because each
product has to be studied thoroughly before and after producing the product and the product
produced should adhere to the standards set. Each engineer contributed in their own field
such as mechanical, electrical, research and development and many more when coming up
with a product. Certain criteria have to be satisfied and considered when producing a face
mask as below.

Some of the common functions of engineers in developing face mask are such as below.

1. Source and design alternative material with sufficient filtering capacity through
modeling and computational method
2. Engineer and design mask for better protection, breathability and give comfort to
users wearing it
3. Develop and engineers multifunctional mask and materials with hydrophobic,
antimicrobial, self-disinfecting and sensing properties
4. Explore new technology for efficient production and optimization of masks such as 3-
D printing

Engineers contribute in finding new ways to improve the product by researching and
designing face mask with maximum filtration capacity to increase the effectiveness of a
mask. If the filtration capacity is not efficient then the function of mask will be lost.
 Figure 9: Filtration capacity of mask (Source:Chua et al., 2020)

Next, engineers are also playing role in providing a mask that gives comfort to users
when wearing it as wearing a face mask has become a norm therefore face masks has to be
worn for long period of time to prevent the spread of transmission from one person to
another.

Furthermore, engineers are responsible in modeling and designing face mask based on
their characteristic and properties in order to provide the best quality product for users. They
can increase the quality of face mask by also developing multifunctional mask and also
producing a mask with hydrophobic properties so that the mask does not get wet if a person
sweats, antimicrobial and self-disinfecting properties because mask has to be worn for long
time and lastly producing masks that enables user to have sensing properties even while
wearing a mask.

Besides that, engineers are also responsible in exploring and introducing new equipment
in production line to produce masks efficiently and doing improvisation such as by using 3D-
printing in producing masks to prevent shortage of masks around the world.

Other than that, engineers are also responsible in maintaining the production line by
carrying our maintenance and using high quality raw materials to produce quality products.
Besides that, they are also responsible in maintaining the quality of the product produced.

6.0 Engineer and professional body responsibility to the society in mask production
during COVID 19 situation.

COVID-19 has caused a chaos in Malaysia by dramatic shortage in the supply of face
masks due to the high demand. To survive during the pandemic, face mask is the most
essential kit that each individual must own to protect themselves from the diseased air and
environment. The professional bodies such as Board of engineers Malaysia (BEM) and
engineers have done great job by extending their respective responsibilities during the
pandemic.

According to OECD response to COVID-19, the engineers have ensured on

maintaining the integrity of the supply chain and scaling up the production of face mask.
They have discovered that the process is extremely costly to match the demand over its
production capacity. An alternative, more effective and cost-efficient solution in the long-
term may involve the companies for rapid conversion of assembly lines during crises

The Department of Standards Malaysia in conjunction with the Ministry of

International Trade and Industry (MITI) have ensured that the face mask produced or
imported meet the optimum standards such as EN 149:2001+A1:2009, ASTM F2100 or
NIOSH. The standards of the face mask differ according to the respective country that it
being produced (Robertson, 2020). The Table 1 below show the standards of different types
of mask with different standards.

Figure 10:Standards and effectiveness of different type of Face Masks (Robertson, 2020)
7.0 Outcome of wearing face masks during Covid-19 Pandemic situation

Every product that is produced will tend to have positive and negative outcome to
variety of people. Surgical masks were commonly used only for health care purposes but
lately when the Covid-19 pandemic started, mask has been a necessary thing for everyone in
the world to stop the spread of Covid-19 virus from one to another. Countries that made
masks compulsory to be worn saw a decrease in number of cases compared to the countries
that did not make masks compulsory to be worn.

Figure 11:Impact of wearing and not wearing masks in countries around the world (Source:
Anderson,2020)

Therefore, there are a lot of positive outcome of wearing a face mask. The most
important function of wearing a face mask is to reduce the spread of virus. Firstly, wearing a
face masks in open public areas is crucial because not everyone is symptomatic towards
Covid-19 virus. Therefore, by wearing a face mask spread of virus from asymptomatic and
symptomatic could be prevented from being exposed to uninfected individuals.
 Figure 12: Type of mask and its efficiency (Source: Talhelm, 2020)

Next, in a working environment every individual come from different place and
contact with different people. So, no one knows who is infected and not infected. Therefore, a
mask could act and be a barrier from transmitting from one another. Besides that, for example
if an infected individual sneeze and the air droplets touch a surface. Then the next person that
touches the surface might not realize the presence of the droplets and end up touching the
face. This could cause transmission of the virus. So if the person with the flu wears a mask
the droplets will touch the surface but stays in the mask.

Figure 13: Ways virus droplet are transmitted (Source: Paul Glaszio,Chris Del Mar, 2020)

Other than that, for healthcare workers mask can help to prevent transmission from
patients that are under treatment. Therefore, mask could act as a barrier to prevent healthcare
workers from getting infected and at the same time prevent uninfected patients from getting
infected as well. For delivery people, they deal with a lot of people when delivering goods
and services. So, a mask could stand as a barrier from getting infected by people that are
infected with Covid-19 virus. In conclusion the most important outcome of wearing a mask is
to prevent the transmission of Covid-19 virus that was spreading fast throughout the world.

Other than positive impact, there were also negative impacts that contributed to the
outcome of wearing a mask. Firstly, mask is not suitable to be worn by every skin type of
person as some people have sensitive skin thus causing rashes and breakouts. So if a working
person having sensitive skin have to compulsorily wear mask to work daily, it may cause the
skin the breakout badly and cause skin problems. If the skin problem persists, it could end up
in a chronic and cause more health and skin issues to the specific person. Besides that,
wearing a surgical mask could cause issues such as difficulty breathing problem for elder
people and people with heart illness. For instance if a person having heart illness the mask
can cause then from smooth breathing as wearing a mask will rotate the air in the mask and
reduce the oxygen intake in the person body. Next, wearing a face masks can give a person
false sense of security which end up causing other safety compliances to be ignored. For
example by wearing a face masks, this might give a person perception that a masks can
prevent the transmission of virus so other safety issues such as social distancing and no hand-
shake policy will be ignored unintentionally. This can lead to faster transmission of virus.

Besides that, usage of face masks cause birds and animals. The face masks that are
disposed without cutting the strings attached to the masks cause it to being entangled to the
feet of the birds. This is known as an end user effect.

Figure 14 : Mask getting tangled on birds feet (Source:Baker,2020)

 In conclusion, outcome of face masks during Covid-19 brought about more positive
effects than negative impacts in curbing the graph of Covid-19 among the countries that were
affected by this virus.

8.0 Lesson learnt (Discussion/Analysis)

In response to the pandemic, many countries which are including Malaysia had to
introduce legal lockdowns to enforce physical separation, which are ravaging economies
worldwide. Although it will be many months or years before 0 cases of this pandemic virus
can be reached, we believe that it is already possible to learn a lot of things through this
pandemic in order to inform response to future crises. The lessons are including the important
of solidary, cooperation, accountability, decisiveness, engineer’s contribution and so on.

So, the first lesson is we have to wash our hand whether there have a virus on it or not
this is because general hygiene is always important. For example, everybody must have the
awareness to wash their hand by soap not just when it have virus on it because the soap is the
best way to kill batteries.

Figure 15:Steps to curb the spread of coronavirus(Source: Paul Glaszio,Chris Del Mar, 2020)

Besides that, every frontline worker such as health care worker and researcher must be
paid better. This is because they are only the people who can get us out of this mess. They are
also the ones working from day to night and never rest to recover and save the world. But
they are only provided one of the 3 ply mask maybe 2 while they are doing the scary task for
a day. Thus, we need to re-evaluate how much we can make and pay to them. Not just only
money, the best way is to thanks their contribution and provide them the best personal
protective equipment (PPE) such as surgical mask, face shields and N95 respirators. Then
only they can help us to fight the virus and find the solution and solve it.

Moreover, it can be learnt that every field of engineers are very important to fight with
COVID-19 pandemic. Due to this pandemic, personal protective equipment is no longer just
belonging to frontline workers. It also belong to every single people in the world and it is lead
to PPE are in short supply. At this time, engineers need to be united and cooperate with
government in building up the new mask factory. Besides that, engineers need to be very
strict in choosing the materials, quality checking of the product and operating the whole
production line in order to produce a perfect quality of mask. This is because the low quality
mask will increase the risk of a people to be infected by virus while they are contact closer
with infected people. Therefore, the leader of engineers must be decisiveness in checking and
certifying the product.

Last but not least, engineers are very important because of they are able to build a
reusable mask for the frontline workers. In this scary time, the demand of mask is very high
and it had already causes short supply of it to them. Thus, the frontline workers had only one
or two mask in a day for them to do the scary mission. Therefore, the reusable mask is very
helpful for them because it can be sanitised and reused many times. Then they can feel better
in working and more confidence in fighting the virus. ‘

Figure 16: Hierarchy of control for Covid-19(Source: Choi and Health, 2020)
9.0 Conclusion

In a nutshell, the relationships between technology, engineering and society to the

industries are never separable as they depend on each other. The engineers have studied,
stimulated and proposed numerous contemporary technologies during the pandemic to
overcome the alarming situation. The engineers have advanced the current industry capacity
and also created astonishing gadgets that were very useful to maintain the peace of the nation.
Besides, face mask production by the engineers during the COVID-19 pandemic was
amplified and enhanced. The society truly depended on the engineering industries to ensure
their health and safety and this are the lessons that need to be learnt. It was a moment of
realization for everyone to know that how vital are the engineers and the technologies in a
society. Last but not least, the engineers must be appreciated and respected for their
development and discoveries.
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