Troy University announced this week that it will receive a $3.5 million grant for the federal government to study how personal protective equipment (PPE) can best be recycled.
Putting the money to use will be TROY’s Center for Materials and Manufacturing Sciences. The university says America generated 100 million tons of medical waste in 2019 alone.
“Medical PPE is something people have been afraid to touch, largely because of contamination. This is absolutely vital research, otherwise the waste generated by PPE will be enormous, in addition to existing waste,” said Dr. Govind Menon, Director of TROY’s School of Science and Technology.
Funding comes from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce that seeks to promote technological advances in the United States.
Troy will hire four full-time scientific researchers with the money from the new grant, which will be dispensed over three years.
NIST has previously awarded two grants to Troy, money the school says was instrumental in furthering the university’s ambitions in scientific research and the 2018 creation of the Center for Materials and Manufacturing Sciences.
“We are entering into the academic research phase of the center. This $3.5 million does directly to research projects, and it will include something TROY has never done before — we’re going to have post-doctoral positions, something very typical of research institutions,” Menon advised.
According to a release, Troy and the University of Alabama in Birmingham will collaborate on the PPE research. The two institutions say they “will establish a full procedure, from decontamination to applications of the resulting materials, to recycle PPE waste.”
“We’re really stepping up our game and becoming a full-blown research center,” remarked Menon about Troy.
Henry Thornton is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can contact him by email: [email protected] or on Twitter @HenryThornton95
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