{"id":26343,"date":"2020-04-09T18:53:07","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T22:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26343"},"modified":"2020-04-09T18:53:14","modified_gmt":"2020-04-09T22:53:14","slug":"magna-hopes-to-roll-out-technology-to-help-sterilize-ppes-from-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/magna-hopes-to-roll-out-technology-to-help-sterilize-ppes-from-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Magna hopes to roll out technology to help sterilize PPEs from COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping we can save some lives with this project\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can already-established technology be used to help\nfrontline workers sterilize their personal protective equipment (PPE) of\nCOVID-19?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the question Aurora-based Magna is hoping to find\nout as they look to ramp up production on purification system already in\nproduction in Newmarket to aid in the fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Puro is a cooler-sized box that was developed to\nharness the anti-microbial and anti-viral properties of ozone. Often used today\nas a way to kill odour-causing microbes on things like hockey equipment, Magna\nis working with partners in the science and medical fields to test the product\nto see if it can help aid the COVID-19 fight. If the results are successful,\nthey hope to significantly ramp up production of the device in York Region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur engineers dreamed up this product they call Puro,\nwhich is a box they can then attach an ozone creating device to fill up the\nspace with ozone, and the ozone is highly effective in killing bacteria,\u201d\nexplains Scott Worden, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, at Magna\nInternational. \u201cThe tests they had originally run found that it was effective\nin knocking out the MRSA bacteria (a bacteria that is frequently found in\nhospital and other healthcare environments). They were looking at things like\nhockey equipment and other sorts of household stuff that you can\u2019t throw into\nthe clothes washer necessarily and can get kind of gross from bacteria. They\ndeveloped this product about five years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magna floated the potential efficacy of this product at\nthe end of March as the Federal Government began engaging with large companies\non redirecting their manufacturing energies towards products that can be used\nto address the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, Mr. Worden says reception from potential\npartners, including medical researchers, has been encouraging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce we started discussing this publicly about a week\nago, our team \u2013 the engineers and the Puro team \u2013 have received quite a bit of\ninterest and feedback,\u201d he says. \u201cThey are at a point now where they are\nworking with some of testing facilities and there are multiple tests going on\nin parallel right now. One of the tests is just to test [whether] the ozone\nchamber in the Puro product knocks out the COVID-19 virus. Will it kill the\nvirus the way that it kills bacteria? That is the first question we\u2019re trying\nto answer with the tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA parallel test they are doing is to test the N95 masks [in the chamber], one of the critical pieces of personal protective equipment that frontline workers need [and] if they can be reused after spending their time in the chamber being cleaned up and sterilized. That is the key: if we find out that we can put PPEs into the chamber, can it kill any COVID-19 virus that is on there and then have healthcare people reuse those masks? That will help alleviate the shortage and the anxiety over having enough PPE.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Worden says Magna anticipates it will take about two\nweeks to get through this testing stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll know at the end of that time period whether or not\nit is going to be effective in killing COVID-19. If we get the news we\u2019re\nhoping for and the tests prove out our hypothesis and what we\u2019re hoping, it is\nabout six weeks to tool up and start being able to manufacture Puro in higher\nvolumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMagna employees are problem-solvers by nature and so, in this situation, with the global pandemic going on and our regular business kind of on hold right now with all the automotive manufacturing that is on hold for everybody\u2019s safety, we really want to try and find a way to help. We\u2019re very much hoping we\u2019ll be able to save some lives with this project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping we can save some lives with this project\u201d Can already-established technology be used to help frontline workers sterilize their personal protective equipment (PPE) of COVID-19? That is the question Aurora-based Magna is hoping to find out as they look to ramp up production on purification system already in production in Newmarket to aid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6QT","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 13:48:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}