A Derbyshire company has ensured that a leading university’s research students can return to their laboratories by donating an ingredient to help them make 4,000 litres of hand sanitiser.
Lubrizol, based in Hazelwood, has donated Carbopol® polymer, a thickening agent used to turn hand sanitiser into a gel, to the chemistry department at Warwick University.
It means the students will be able to make 100 litres of alcohol hand gel every day, allowing research students to return to the university this week, before the campus completely reopens in September.
In common with many schools and businesses, the university has installed gel dispensers outside each room and building on the campus and needs to make 600 litres of hand sanitiser every week to fill them.
Carbopol polymers are an essential ingredient in hand sanitisers due to its thickening properties; it turns the liquid into a gel, ensuring that it spreads easily and coats the hands.
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Professor Dave Haddleton, of Warwick University, said: “At the height of the pandemic we were making WHO approved hand sanitiser for the NHS, but as the hospitals now have a sustained supply this effort is no longer required.
“However, the university requires hand sanitiser across campus and we need to make both surface and hand sanitizer liquid and gel so we can ensure the safe return of our PHD students in June, who are keen to get back into the laboratories to continue their research projects.
“There is a global shortage of hand sanitiser, so we are extremely grateful to Lubrizol for their donation which has come out of our long-standing partnership.
“We intend to have five teams of three or four student volunteers making 100 litres of sanitiser each day. This will mean we can safely open the doors to all staff, students and visitors in September right across campus.”
Carbopol polymers have seen global unprecedented increases in demand since the Covid-19 pandemic began and Lubrizol has tripled the ingredient’s production, enabling 1 billion bottles of hand sanitiser to be delivered every month to the health care industry, first responders and consumers around the world.
It is among a number of Lubrizol’s products playing a pivotal part in the fight against the coronavirus, from the polymers in face-masks to its donations of personal protective equipment to frontline NHS health workers and community volunteers.
More than 40 boxes of latex gloves, 120 face masks and 80 pairs of safety glasses were given to the Royal Hospital in Derby and 2,000 latex gloves were donated to a new community group, Loughborough Against Corona, whose 250 members are working with the NHS to deliver prescriptions and other goods to vulnerable people living in and around Loughborough.
The donations are part of a vast $2m commitment on behalf of Lubrizol’s global headquarters, which are based in Ohio, USA, to help community initiatives engaged in stopping the spread of the COVID-19 virus across the world.
Tim Smith, strategic technology manager at Lubrizol, said: “Carbopol polymers are a thickening agent which is used in an extraordinary number of products in the health and beauty industry, pharmaceuticals and household cleaners. Without it, hand sanitiser is too runny and simply not as effective, but as the demand for alcohol gel is bigger than ever before, so to is the demand for Carbopol polymers.
“We work very closely with Warwick University and sponsor 12 PhD students in the chemistry department, so we were very happy to help support them with this donation.”
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