On August 11th, UNAERP received an international visit from engineer Paolo Tronville, professor at the Department of Energy at the Polytechnic Institute of Turin, Italy. The researcher maintains a history of relationship with the University through studies in partnership with the Chemical Engineering program and the Graduate Program in Environmental Technology.

During the visit, the researcher got to know the laboratories where part of the tests will be carried out for a research that will analyze filter media that can be placed in masks, as well as in environments to guarantee air quality. This study has been developed in partnership with Professor Murilo Innocentini and the University of São Paulo (USP).

Innocentini says that UNAERP role is to test the quality of filter media, which are developed at USP laboratories in São Carlos and Pirassununga and which will be used by the Tronville research. According to the researcher, the idea is, from the study, to enable the production of effective and low-cost masks. "It's no use having a very efficient mask, but one that is not accessible to the low-income population for continuous use, because apparently we are going to use a mask in periods for many, many years".

Professor Tronville comments that, in 2020, when he started the study, few laboratories in Italy - and even in Europe - were able to carry out this measurement. “We received a request for help from the authorities and developed an innovative method to measure the filter media in masks, based on other methods that we were already using in the past. Now we have more equipment and we are in the process of accepting the laboratory to measure masks, as here in Brazil the N-95 and in Europe the FFP-2”.

For Innocentini, the partnership brings benefits not only to science, but also to society as a whole. “Over the past three years, the whole world has been in a need to spend a lot of resources for a health emergency and partnerships have stood out, because we had the ability to mobilize faster, to arrive at a faster response. Now we have the need for greater mobilization. The good news is that our University has always been aware of the possibilities and this is very important, not only for the resources, but for the rapid mobilization and forces that are multidisciplinary”, he concludes.


Professor Tronville comments that his lab got more equipment and is now in an acceptance process to measure masks.