Ohio State Team Creates Prototype of New Child-Resistant Spray Bottle

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering faculty member Blaine Lilly is part of a team of researchers from The Ohio State University and The Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH) who have developed a prototype for child-resistant spray bottles for household cleaning products. If produced, the prototype would provide an alternative to current, more harmful child-resistant spray bottles while still meeting U.S. Consumer Product Safety commission standards for child resistance.

The project to create a safer bottle began in Autumn

2010 when Dr. Lara McKenzie’s group at Nationwide Children’s Hospital came to Ohio State's Department of Design looking for a solution to the known safety issue. Each year, a large number of children under the age of five were injured by pointing spray bottles directly at their own faces. Children would simply push the trigger of the spray bottles with both thumbs, resulting in serious injury.

The NCH researchers wanted to create a mechanism that would keep the spray nozzle in the 'off' or 'locked' position when a child attempted to use the spray bottle, but still enable the bottle to be easily used by an adult. Associate Professors Carolina Gill and Scott Shim of the Department of Design, along with graduate student Thornton Lothrop, took on the problem. After additional field research, they arrived at two preliminary concepts for the device, which the NCH group agreed were feasible. The Department of Design team then asked Associate Professor Blaine Lilly to join the group as they developed the concepts into working prototypes. Together, they developed a distinct method for making spray bottles essentially unusable by children younger than six years of age.

“The two-stage trigger mechanism design restricts the ability of young children to engage the triggers of the spray bottle because they lack the dexterity to perform the correct operational sequence and because their hand size and strength are not sufficient to activate the mechanism,” said Professor Lilly. “The spray mechanism is designed to be extremely challenging for young children to operate, yet will allow adults comfortable use.”

With the assistance of the NCH group, the prototypes designed by the Ohio State team were tested by children and parents at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.  Testing showed that the final concept fulfilled the team’s goals. In order to develop interest in the manufacture of the new spray bottle trigger, Ohio State's Office of Technology Commercialization continues to work with their colleagues at NCH, and have applied for a patent on the device, and are now marketing the concept to industry.