Patrick Franz, the founder and chief executive of materials group PlanarTECH which is currently engaged in an equity crowdfunding campaign to expand its business and enter new markets, sees graphene as a potentially useful tool in the fight against Coronavirus.
Franz says research papers written in China over the last four years identified graphene oxide as a potentially effective anti-viral agent. Though none of the studies targeted the same pathogen responsible for the current Coronavirus outbreak, Frantz says the conclusion is that graphene oxide may offer a platform to fight a variety of viral infections (such as the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus) and possibly in the form of a coating.
It is not such a great conceptual leap to go from a cosmetic face mask to a protective face mask," suggests Frantz.