Australian team wins Society of Manufacturing Engineers award for anti-viral copper research

A piece of research from the early days of the pandemic, involving a team including Swinburne University researchers and additive manufacturing company SPEE3D, has received recognition from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) in the United States.

According to a short statement from the university on Friday, Director of Swinburne’s Manufacturing Futures Research Platform Professor Suresh Palanisamy and his team of post-doc researchers Dr Novana Hutasoit and Dr Rizwan Abdul Rahman Rashid, were awarded the latest Manufacturing Letters Best Paper Award from SME.

The team were recognised for their 2020 paper, Sars-CoV-2 (COVID-19) inactivation capability of copper-coated touch surface fabricated by cold-spray technology, which also features SPEE3D co-founder and CEO Byron Kennedy as an author. The award was announced at the North American Manufacturing Research Institution (NAMRI) SME awards event in Knoxville, Tennessee.

“Their award-winning paper… platforms innovative research into using copper-coated surfaces to combat COVID-19,” Swinburne announced on Linkedin on Friday. 

“The research exemplifies the practical application of advanced manufacturing techniques in addressing global health challenges, and was carried out in collaboration with industry partners SPEE3D and 360biolabs, a BioAgilytix company.”

(The paper can be accessed here.)

According to SME’s website, the award considers factors such as originality or novelty of an idea, method or approach, significance to manufacturing and technical soundness.

As reported by @AuManufacturing in April 2020, SPEE3D announced results that month of lab tests by NATA-accredited 360Biolabs examining the viricidal effectiveness of the copper coating deposited on existing metal parts

At the time the company was billing the solution ACTIVAT3D, and said tests had found 96 per cent effectiveness after two hours and 99.2 per cent after five hours. 

The news comes the same week SPEE3D officially opened its first US-based manufacturing facility and applications center at the John Olson Advanced Manufacturing Center at the University of New Hampshire (UNH).

Picture: Professor Suresh Palanisamy (credit Swinburne)

Further reading

Lab tests show effectiveness of Australian 3D printed copper invention against COVID-19

SPEE3D opens US 3D print applications centre