Seshadri Ramkumar, Professor, Texas Tech University, USA
Latest LEXIPOL series featured Texas Tech’s FiberTect as an important component in decontaminating synthetic opioids. FiberTect is gaining international recognition in the decontamination field. LEXIPOL series is widely watched by Fire Rescue, First Responders and Defense communities around the world. In the talk, “Maximizing Decon Efficiency: Solutions for Fentanyl and Other Drugs,” on May 8, 2024, Corey Collings, Director of Research at First Line Technology presented the hybrid decontamination method which has FiberTect as the adsorbent. Hybrid decontamination has become a go to method to decontaminate toxic chemicals with the use of FiberTect dry wipe to remove bulk agents followed by a chemical solution to neutralize and remove the remaining toxic chemical.
Recently, the result by the United States’s Army has shown that FiberTect nonwoven wipe has better efficiency in particulate decontamination that wet wipes and vacuum technologies available. Importantly, the nonwoven wipe has been shown to perform well in sub-zero temperatures, which is critical as regions with extreme cold conditions are prone to have serious fentanyl addiction. FiberTect came out of the research that was funded by the U. S. Army RDECOM and was part of Admiral Zumwalt Program for Countermeasures to Chemical and Biological Threats at Texas Tech University.
It is such a relish to see the invention from the Nonwovens and Advanced Materials Laboratory, Texas Tech University is having global impact in saving lives of soldiers, first responders and civilians. FiberTect has become an important tool in the fight against fentanyl addiction.
The video released by LEXIPOL highlights FiberTect results from about 35.25 minutes into the presentation.
