Four students of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences (FMIPA) Ahmad Syarwani, Yusuf Kustianto, Moh Adrian Barra Akbar, and Sasti Gona Fadhilah used Spotted Bamboo Leaves as material for making non-medical COVID-19 masks.
Allegedly, it has the effectiveness of being able to filter the COVID-19 virus above 70 percent according to the target set by WHO.
This figure is much higher than non-medical masks that have been spreading in the community today, with a filtration rate of 26 percent for cotton and 23 percent for nylon.
The team leader, Ahmad Syarwani explained the efforts made to obtain high-efficiency materials to filter the COVID-19 virus through droplets, namely by modifying the cellulose material obtained from spotted bamboo leaves into nano size and added with acetate groups.
“We made non-medical masks for COVID-19 from nano-cellulose acetate which is much more effective in filtering viruses than non-medical masks that already exist today,” said Syarwani.
In the production process, Ahmad Syarwani explained that the cellulose is taken from bamboo leaves and then made into nano size into nanocellulose.
After that, acetylation is processed by adding an acetate group to the nano-cellulose. After that, Nano-cellulose Acetate is processed and printed into non-medical COVID-19 masks.
“We hope that COVID-19 non-medical masks from bamboo leaf cellulose can be mass produced by the industrial world, which has the advantage of being able to filter the COVID-19 virus through droplets scattered in the air.
In addition, this research can be a step in tackling bamboo leaf waste that accumulates and is not utilized during the harvesting period,” said Barra, who is a member of the research team.
Under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Drs. Warsito, M.S., the PKM team of Bamboo Leaf Nano-cellulose Acetate will compete in the PIMNAS competition in the Exact Research category. (GY/Humas UB/ Trans. Iir)
