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University of Michigan startup Taza Aya has developed an invisible air curtain that filters more than 99% of the aerosols in its user’s breathing area. The technology is similar to a visor except the glass is replaced with blown air from the top of a helmet. After starting in a U-M Civil Engineering research lab and growing into an independent startup, the company is rolling out its technology to Michigan Turkey factory workers with plans to expand to the broader public.
The technology draws outside air into a backpack unit and removes any infectious viruses using nonthermal plasma, a collection of energized particles created in an electric field that sterilizes any microorganisms and viruses it comes into contact with. The filtered air travels up to a visor attached to a worker’s safety helmet and flows down in a continuous curtain of air around their face, deflecting nearly all incoming aerosols without blocking the user’s face.
Herek Clack, co-founder and chief scientific officer of Taza Aya and U-M engineering professor, said in an interview with The Michigan Daily that he originally worked on central filtration systems but moved to a miniaturized design to better protect people from individual exposure.
“It occurred to me that if you and I were sitting across the table from each other … if I cough in your face, there’s nothing that the air conditioning is going to do to prevent that,” Clack said. “The only way that would happen if it were blowing like a hurricane … then that airflow of that vent would divert my cough away from your face, but we don’t operate our systems that way. … We basically took that concept and focused it on blowing like a hurricane down in front of your face.”
Clack reflected on his work as a founder of Taza Aya and his work as a professor. He told The Daily that he continues to be driven by the lack of other options available to people.
“It’s classic engineering, seeing what I believe was a burning need and then just being driven to address that need day after day after day because no one else, nothing else, is addressing that need,” Clack said.
Clack told The Daily the company did not find immediate success, highlighting the difficulty of explaining the importance of the technology before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For the first five to seven years, we were doing research on how to inactivate viruses in air, and we really didn’t get much traction from any federal entity or any federal funding that is focused on human applications,” Clack said. “This was pre-COVID, and most of the responses we got were, ‘Why would we need something like this?’ … ‘It’s been so long, it’s been 85 years since we’ve had a pandemic. What are the odds that we would have another pandemic?’”
In 2023, Taya Aza won a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to provide its product to meat and poultry factory workers, who are at a higher risk of COVID-19 than the general population, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
The company partnered with Michigan Turkey in 2023. Clack said the collaboration with Michigan Turkey is a step towards a future where the broader public could greatly benefit from the facial visibility provided by the air curtains, as compared to traditional masks. In working towards reaching a broader audience, Clack told The Daily that the next major step will be to turn the two-part system into one, containing the entire mechanism within the visor.
“Our next step would be to make this smaller so that everything would fit on the head, and you don’t have to wear a backpack,” Clack said. “So you literally would have a baseball cap or a visor outfitted with all the electromechanicals and then the air distribution part integrated along the brim of the baseball cap.”
Michael Drake, co-founder and chief operating officer of Taza Aya, told The Daily that he is excited about the progress the company is making and its future as a commercial product.
“(The air curtain is) going from something that I would probably call a minimum viable product to something that’s getting closer and closer to something that’s … a more traditional commercial product,” Drake said. “As things get smaller, wider, that just plays into a product more people are going to like, and that is just super exciting to see and experience.”
Rackham student Pannaga Sudarshan interned at Taza Aya last summer and said he hopes to return next fall after he graduates. He told The Daily that he is thrilled for the future of the company.
“We are heading somewhere where we potentially see a lot of other factory workers using our products,” Sudharshan said. “So we’d like to see in the next phase how it’s all going to come together, and then I’m just excited to see where we are and to see what new challenges I can take on.”
Daily Staff Reporter Daniel Johnson can be reached at dbjohn@umich.edu.
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