Tokyo, Japan, October 13, 2020 - Xenoma, a leading smart apparel startup, announced the start of an experiment to measure how a mask prevents droplets from scattering with the cooperation of Associate Professor Masanori Ota of the Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University after making a cough generating machine.

Xenoma has donated 40,000 cloth masks to kindergartens and elderly nursing homes as well as providing them for sale through its online store. The masks are manufactured within the country. Among them, the “Cool Everyday Mask”, which has particularly excellent ventilation performance, is very popular among users when exercising indoors in places such as fitness gyms.

While many computer simulations were conducted on the effectiveness of cloth masks, Xenoma carried out droplet measurement resulting from a cough while wearing its masks with the cooperation of Associate Professor Masanori Ota of the Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University. Xenoma has created a sneezing/coughing generator that generates moist air that imitates coughing and sneezing with a constant output referring to Waseda University / Juntendo University joint research1), the measurement of which was done by the Background Oriented Schlieren method with reference to the University of Edinburgh report.2)

As a result of the first step of the experiment comparing the case without a mask and the case using a "Cool Everyday Mask", it was observed that the splashing distance in front was about 20 cm when the "Cool Everyday Mask" is used, which was significantly shorter compared to the case without a mask.

Since there are cases where people are asymptomatic for carrying the virus, the main purpose of cloth masks is to prevent others from becoming infected. By shortening the scattering distance of droplets, we can reduce the risk of droplet infection by inhalation by others. That is, the required social distance can be reduced. As droplets continue to float in a closed space, it is important to ventilate regardless of whether a mask is worn.

Xenoma will not only continue this experiment in collaboration with Chiba University to clarify the effect of cloth masks in more detail, but will also tackle social issues caused by the Covid-19 infection as a company aiming to utilize health care data for preventive medicine.

1) Ogata, M., et al. "Measurement of cough droplet deposition using the cough machine." The Architectural Institute of Japan’s Journal of Environmental Engineering 83.743 (2018): 57-64.
2) Viola, I. M., et al. "Face Coverings, Aerosol Dispersion and Mitigation of Virus Transmission Risk." arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.10720 (2020).

About Xenoma

Xenoma develops the next-generation smart apparel ‘e-skin’ to provide well-being and happiness in your daily life. Tracking various data anytime and anywhere on the whole body, e-skin is one of the most ideal interfaces to monitor activities and vital signs. The special flexibility and comfort of the e-skin technology makes it possible to track and capture the user’s natural and unhindered performance.