MagPlasma was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project to develop a device to protect Federal law enforcement personnel from contagions carried by vehicle passengers. MagPlasma proposed a single pass device that will collect and remove infectious particles exhaled by vehicle passengers before their concentration can reach an infectious dose level in confined spaces. The MagPlasma device will capture single or multiple passengers breathing zone air; continuously filter and actively purify the air stream to reduce contagion loading; and exhaust the treated effluent air stream back into the vehicle or exhaust it externally. The proposed system uses a “defense-in-depth” approach by combining both passive air collection/entrapment media and the active destruction power of a plasma field to purify the air. Our patented method and device combine both passive and active airborne virus reduction to protect other passengers from secondary infections resulting from infected passengers’ exhalation of contagions.

There is significant potential to sell these systems to law enforcement and emergency responders in both the civilian and federal markets, as well as incorporate the system into military vehicles without integral collective protection systems. This will enable military units to operate in biologically contaminated environments while in a lower MOPP level. MagPlasma’s extensive use of commercial-off-the-shelf components will improve the likelihood of project success, ensure an adequate supply of spare parts and technical support, and promote the broad use of the technology to improve mission readiness regardless of the airborne threat. When produced at scale, our system will result in an on-demand system that is a low cost, high efficiency solution that is ready for both short and long-term use in purifying vehicle cabin air.