Washington State University and Eastern Washington University have begun producing alcohol-based hand sanitizer to meet increased hygiene needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a news release Wednesday, WSU said its environmental health and safety department in Pullman has produced about 50 gallons of hand sanitizer and has enough supplies on hand to make another 800 gallons.
The product, dubbed “Cougar Clean,” is made of ethanol, glycerol, hydrogen peroxide and distilled water, resulting in a solution that is 80 percent alcohol. It’s being made available to essential WSU employees to reserve the university’s supply of commercial-grade hand sanitizer for use by the campus medical clinic.
“We are committed to providing hand sanitizer to our essential employees doing vital work on our campuses, and for WSU students in public areas where they pick up food or receive other essential services,” Dwight Hagihara, WSU’s director of environmental health and safety, said in a statement.
WSU and EWU both got approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to produce their hand sanitizer formulas.
At EWU, chemistry professor Jeff Corkill and lab manager Fred Joslin gathered the necessary chemicals and planned to mix their first batch of sanitizer on Thursday, filling bottles they purchased from a local Dollar Tree store.
Corkill said they plan to make about 5 gallons of sanitizer at first and have supplies to make more. They plan to distribute large bottles to local first responders, nursing homes and homeless shelters, and make smaller bottles available to individuals in Cheney.
Design professor Mindy Breen and student Danielle Flinn created the labels for the bottles, and Spokane’s Instant Sign Factory printed them at no cost, Corkill said.
“A lot of different people contributed,” he said.
Spokane’s Dry Fly Distilling also is producing a hand sanitizer it calls “Spokanitizer” with equipment typically used to make spirits.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends people use hand sanitizer that is at least 60 percent alcohol when soap and water are not available. That’s enough to kill microbes including the novel coronavirus.
