The Effect of Sanitizing Treatments on Respirator Filtration Performance

Jürg A. Schütz, Anthony P. Pierlot and David L. J. Alexander
Additional contact information
Jürg A. Schütz: CSIRO Manufacturing, 75 Pigdons Road, Waurn Ponds, Geelong, VIC 3216, Australia
Anthony P. Pierlot: CSIRO Manufacturing, 75 Pigdons Road, Waurn Ponds, Geelong, VIC 3216, Australia
David L. J. Alexander: CSIRO Data61, 20 Research Way, Clayton, Melbourne, VIC 3168, Australia

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 2, 1-26

Abstract: The potential for alcoholic vapors emitted by common sanitizing treatments to deteriorate the (electrostatic) filtration performance of disposable respirator masks has been investigated. Reports in the literature and some standard test methods provide a confusing and ambiguous picture concerning the relevance of this effect. Four different types of exposure were investigated in this study to clarify the effect of alcoholic vapor emissions on respirator masks. These included exposure to saturated vapors, use of hand sanitizers, cleaning of table surfaces and sanitization of masks by spraying them with alcohol-containing solutions. Methods employed were designed to be as real-world oriented as possible while remaining reproducible. Filtration performance and deterioration effects on exposure to the different treatments were determined on three different types of certified commercial respirator masks—a P2 and two KN95 masks. This study provides substantial evidence that disposable respirator masks with an accepted performance rating are seriously compromised from an exposure to saturated alcoholic vapors, can tolerate a one-off spray treatment with an alcoholic solution and retain their attested protection under the influence of alcoholic vapors from the use of hand sanitizer or spray sanitizer. Considering the range of vastly different outcomes obtained from the four treatments investigated, it seems prudent to assess in each case the specific effects of alcoholic solution treatments and vapors on respirator masks before use.

Keywords: respirator masks; COVID-19; sanitizing treatments; most penetrable particle size (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/2/641/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/2/641/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:2:p:641-:d:719237

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().