Peter Tsai (; born February 6, 1952) is a

Taiwanese-American Taiwanese Americans ( Chinese: 臺灣裔美國人; pinyin: ''Táiwān yì měiguó rén''; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: ''Tâi-Bí-jîn'') are Americans of Taiwanese ancestry, including American-born descendants of migrants from the Republic of China (Taiwan) ...

inventor and

material scientist Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials scien ...

who is best known for inventing and patenting improved meltblown filtration manufacturing techniques, used in

respirators A respirator is a device designed to protect the wearer from inhaling hazardous atmospheres including lead, lead fumes, vapors, gases and particulate matter such as dusts and airborne pathogens such as viruses. There are two main categories o ...

''(like

N95 respirator An N95 respirator is a disposable Respirator#Filtering facepiece, filtering facepiece respirator or reusable elastomeric respirator filter that meets the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) N95 standard of air fi ...

s, which is a 1995

NIOSH The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, ) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury, illness, disability, and death. It ...

standard made to address the shortcomings of USBM standards)''. He is an expert in the field of

nonwoven fabric Nonwoven fabric or non-woven fabric is a fabric-like material made from staple fibre (short) and long fibres (continuous long), bonded together by chemical, mechanical, heat or solvent treatment. The term is used in the textile manufacturing in ...

. Tsai was a Professor Emeritus at the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...

, but ended his retirement during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

to research mask and respirator sterilization.

Early life and education

Tsai grew up on his family's farm in the

Qingshui District Qingshui District (), also spelled as Chingshui District, is a coastal suburban district (Republic of China), district in western Taichung City, Taiwan. Geography Qingshui is located on the Qingshui Plain of Taiwan. It borders the Taiwan S ...

Taichung Taichung (, Wade–Giles: '), officially Taichung City, is a special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality in central Taiwan. Taichung is Taiwan's second-largest city, with more than 2.85 million residents, making it the largest city in Ce ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

and graduated from Taichung Municipal Cingshuei Senior High School. He studied chemical fibre engineering at the Provincial Taipei Institute of Technology, now known as

National Taipei University of Technology National Taipei University of Technology (Taipei Tech; ) is a public university in Taipei, Taiwan. It is a member of the Global Research & Industry Alliance (Gloria) of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of China, Ministry of ...

Career

After graduating college he went to work at the Taiwan Textile Research Institute before finding work in a dyeing and finishing plant. He then went abroad to the United States for postgraduate work at

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant coll ...

in 1981, completing over 500 credits in a variety of subjects including mathematics, physics, and chemistry. After receiving his doctorate in

materials science Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials sci ...

, Tsai went to teach and work at the

. In total, he holds 12 U.S. patents and over 20 commercial license agreements. Tsai retired from the University of Tennessee in 2019. He was a professor in the Department of Material Science and Engineering. In 2020, Tsai came out of retirement in response to the

, he has been working with the scientific collective N95DECON on ways to decontaminate N95 masks.

Meltblown Charge Techniques

In 1992 while at the University of Tennessee, Tsai led a team attempting to improve electrostatic filtration manufacturing. The material consists of both positive and negative charges, which are better able to attract particles — such as dust, bacteria and viruses — and trap them by polarization before they can pass through the mask. It was patented in the U.S. in 1995. Tsai continued to do work into mask technology and in 2018 he developed a new technique which doubled the filtration capacity of medical masks.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tsai, Peter Living people 20th-century American inventors 20th-century American scientists 20th-century Taiwanese scientists 21st-century American inventors 21st-century American scientists American materials scientists Kansas State University alumni National Taipei University of Technology alumni Scientists from Taichung Taiwanese emigrants to the United States Taiwanese inventors Taiwanese materials scientists University of Tennessee faculty Year of birth missing (living people)

Early life and education

Career

Meltblown Charge Techniques

See also

Notes

References