Substitute Filter Material: Testing System

Solution: A device that uses an easy source of nano-sized aerosol, incense sticks, to generate particles that have similar size to that of SARS-Cov-2. These particles are forced through the filter candidate using a simple air pump. A household smoke detector is used to detect when the number of particles that have flown through the filter have reached a certain value. In spite of its simplicity, this simple device has shown high reproducibility in testing different filter materials and can easily differentiate between good filter materials (high number of pump pulses, or "puffs") and poor filter materials (low number of puffs).