Xerox Turns Printer Filters into Masks

Xerox Turns Printer Filters into Masks

Xerox has teamed up with and Hickey-Freeman to help the healthcare professionals at Rochester Regional Health. The hospital is in the same community where the two brands were founded.

Two iconic companies, Xerox and the menswear brand Hickey Freeman Tailored Clothing, Inc., are working together to transform printer filters and textiles into medical-grade masks for healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients.

According to their Facebook announcement, Xerox and Hickey Freeman will donate 10,000 masks to help in the fight against the coronavirus in one of the planet’s worst hotspots—New York.

Apparently, Xerox has been able to re-purpose the filter material into facemasks. Thanks to its printing capabilities it has a ready supply of printer filter material that is more critically needed as facemasks.

While these won’t be N95 masks, the two companies state they will give healthcare professionals “more protection than standard masks.”

Xerox was founded by Joseph C. Wilson and Chester Carlson in 1906 in Rochester, New York, as The Haloid Photographic Company, manufacturing photographic paper and equipment.
In 1938 Carlson invented a process for printing images using an electrically charged photoconductor-coated metal plate and dry powder “toner”. But it would take another 20 years before the first automated machine to make copies was commercialized, using a document feeder, scanning light, and a rotating drum—a Xerox copier.

Hickey Freeman is a manufacturer of suits for men and boys, based in Rochester, New York, US, founded in 1899 by Jeremiah G. Hickey. The Hickey-Freeman Co. was considered to be one of the most distinguished emporium for the once-booming men’s clothing industry based in Rochester at the start of the 20th century.

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