New 3D respirators made in Catalonia, ready to be used at ICUs

New 3D respirators made by a group of Catalan companies are already being used at Intensive Care Units (ICUs) as a validated campaign respirator. Named Leitat1, the respirator has been tested with patients affected by the COVID-19 virus in the ICU of Parc Taulí Hospital (Sabadell, Barcelona) with positive results.

The use of the devices will be expanded shortly in several other hospitals in Catalonia (Vall d'Hebron Hospital, Hospital del Mar, Terrassa’s Health Consortium and General Hospital of Granollers) under the coordination of Dr. Ricard Ferrer, director of the ICU at Vall d'Hebrón Hospital and manager of the ICU division in Catalonia.

Having been approved by the Spanish Medicines Agency, the goal now is to accelerate the production and distribution of the respirator and help prevent the collapse of medical emergencies.

Catalan alliance

In just over a week, the design of the first campaign respirator has been proved fully functional. It has been created as a result of the alliance between the Consortium of Barcelona’s Zona Franca estate (CZFB), American company HP, technology center Leitat, the Catalan public health system (CatSalut), the city of Terrassa’s Health Consortium (CST) and Parc Taulí Hospital in Sabadell (Barcelona).

It's a sturdy, compact respirator made up of 3D printed parts with HP Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) technology and is designed to be industrially scalable, so that up to 50 units of daily output can be achieved at a cost that is 10 times lower than a conventional respirator.

After obtaining the support of the health authorities, the production will be accelerated, and the assembling will take place at the Cares Foundation. The pieces will be printed on the CZFB infrastructures with the support of the 3D Factory Incubator and the 3D Hub (IAM3DHUB).

The company Bosch Siemens Home Appliance (BSH) has also joined, and contacts with other companies like Airbus are in place to share knowledge and technical skills to develop soon a new version of the respirator (Leitat 2.0).

Source: Consortium of Barcelona’s Zona Franca estate