Meat-packing plants have been declared to be essential services. However, current working conditions subject employees to the disastrous potential spread of the novel coronavirus. This endangers the workers, their families, and the entire surrounding communities. Providing a system to protect the population from infection among workers is a social obligation.
Perastic, LLC (www.perastic.com), a Delaware materials innovation company and together with its South Korean associates announces the move-in ready Quarantreat™ Medical Isolation Studio (MIS) to provide sequestered living space for these essential workers, and quarantine retreat spaces for those workers diagnosed with the coronavirus.
Conceived as a medical isolation studio, the Quarantreat™ MIS is a pre-fabricated living space for one featuring hotel class interior. Many of these units assembled into a Quarantreat™ Village provide these essential workers of the meat-packing plants with a sequestered living community that can the community from uncontrolled spread of the virus. When equipped with the Negative Pressure Ventilation (NPV) system, the Quarantreat™ MIS filters and decontaminates the air to control the spread of airborne pathogens. All the equipment necessary to live comfortably for the duration of the COVID-19 danger fits snugly in a compact 135ft2 living compartment. This includes full shower bathroom, furniture, HVAC, and Internet of Things (IoT) functionality; options for built-in TV, computer, mini-fridge, and NPV are available.
Manufactured in the port city of Busan, S Korea, the Quarantreat™ MIS was designed for rapid dispatch anywhere on the planet. Two Quarantreat™ MIS units fit inside a 40′ high cube sea freight container or in the hold of a C-130 cargo airplane. As many as 100 units can be manufactured within two weeks for move-in ready delivery; the only set-up required is to connect the electricity, plumbing, and optional communications network.
Integral to the design and performance of the Quarantreat™ is the use of LitePan® Composite Structural Insulated Panels (C-SIPs) that provide the structural integrity of the unit, airtight sealing, and thermal insulation, which guarantee low operational costs of climate and pressure control.
All materials used in the construction of the Quarantreat™ product line have been rigorously tested for safety in a living environment. Tests cover fire safety, structural integrity, and chemical emission. LiteTex®, the composite laminate for LitePan® that gives the panel its strength and air-tight properties, exhibits no measurable volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions—an essential requirement for all domestic spaces—and the LitePan® structure system has a demonstrated performance of 0.24 air changes at 50 Pa, n50 /h, which is a result 4 times better than the world-leading German passive house standard. Because of this air tight sealing property, the transportable NPV system used in Quarantreat™ MIS can efficiently sustain the required pressure differential while maintaining an air change rate in the range of 12 to 40 times per hour with a library-acceptable noise level less than 40dB. The hospital regulation for NPV is greater than 12 air changes per hour.
Interior and exterior panel surface laminates assure conformance with fire safety standards. The Quarantreat™ MIS boasts R24 insulation value, ASTM E84 Class ‘A’ flame spread on interior and exterior wall and ceiling surfaces, ASTM E119 performance under conditions of interior fire, and an easily cleaned anti-bacterial interior finish.
After the crisis phase of the pandemic has subsided, Quarantreat™ can be re-purposed for use as a modular hotel, dormitory, veteran housing, capsule hotel, or other immediate and affordable accommodation functions.
Axia Materials CEO Justin Jin says “Our composite building technology enabled us to develop the Quarantreat™ MIS units to be rapidly manufactured at low cost while exhibiting light weight and air tight sealing. Now we are producing 300 units per month. We are already filling our first order from the Singapore government, and now we are receiving inquiries from many countries including USA, Canada, France, Japan, and SE Asian countries. We are proud to utilize our novel composite technologies to deliver an immediate architectural solution to address the unique challenges of this pandemic.”