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Extended use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic - Thermal conditioning and spray-on surface disinfection
The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in globally constrained supplies for face masks and personal protective equipment (PPE). Production capacity is limited in many countries and the future course of the pandemic will likely continue with shortages for high quality masks and PPE in the foresee...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Published by Elsevier Ltd.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7271865/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32834203 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2020.109251 |
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author | Celina, Mathew C. Martinez, Estevan Omana, Michael A. Sanchez, Andres Wiemann, Dora Tezak, Matthew Dargaville, Tim R. |
author_facet | Celina, Mathew C. Martinez, Estevan Omana, Michael A. Sanchez, Andres Wiemann, Dora Tezak, Matthew Dargaville, Tim R. |
author_sort | Celina, Mathew C. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in globally constrained supplies for face masks and personal protective equipment (PPE). Production capacity is limited in many countries and the future course of the pandemic will likely continue with shortages for high quality masks and PPE in the foreseeable future. Hence, expectations are that mask reuse, extended wear and similar approaches will enhance the availability of personal protective measures. Repeated thermal disinfection could be an important option and likely easier implemented in some situations, at least on the small scale, than UV illumination, irradiation or hydrogen peroxide vapor exposure. An overview on thermal responses and ongoing filtration performance of multiple face mask types is provided. Most masks have adequate material properties to survive a few cycles (i.e. 30 min disinfection steps) of thermal exposure in the 75°C regime. Some are more easily affected, as seen by the fusing of plastic liner or warping, given that preferred conditioning temperatures are near the softening point for some of the plastics and fibers used in these masks. Hence adequate temperature control is equally important. As guidance, disinfectants sprayed via dilute solutions maintain a surface presence over extended time at 25 and 37°C. Some spray-on alcohol-based solutions containing disinfectants were gently applied to the top surface of masks. Neither moderate thermal aging (less than 24 h at 80 and 95°C) nor gentle application of surface disinfectant sprays resulted in measurable loss of mask filter performance. Subject to bio-medical concurrence (additional checks for virus kill efficiency) and the use of low risk non-toxic disinfectants, such strategies, either individually or combined, by offering additional anti-viral properties or short term refreshing, may complement reuse options of professional masks or the now ubiquitous custom-made face masks with their often unknown filtration effectiveness. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7271865 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Published by Elsevier Ltd. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-72718652020-06-05 Extended use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic - Thermal conditioning and spray-on surface disinfection Celina, Mathew C. Martinez, Estevan Omana, Michael A. Sanchez, Andres Wiemann, Dora Tezak, Matthew Dargaville, Tim R. Polym Degrad Stab Article The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in globally constrained supplies for face masks and personal protective equipment (PPE). Production capacity is limited in many countries and the future course of the pandemic will likely continue with shortages for high quality masks and PPE in the foreseeable future. Hence, expectations are that mask reuse, extended wear and similar approaches will enhance the availability of personal protective measures. Repeated thermal disinfection could be an important option and likely easier implemented in some situations, at least on the small scale, than UV illumination, irradiation or hydrogen peroxide vapor exposure. An overview on thermal responses and ongoing filtration performance of multiple face mask types is provided. Most masks have adequate material properties to survive a few cycles (i.e. 30 min disinfection steps) of thermal exposure in the 75°C regime. Some are more easily affected, as seen by the fusing of plastic liner or warping, given that preferred conditioning temperatures are near the softening point for some of the plastics and fibers used in these masks. Hence adequate temperature control is equally important. As guidance, disinfectants sprayed via dilute solutions maintain a surface presence over extended time at 25 and 37°C. Some spray-on alcohol-based solutions containing disinfectants were gently applied to the top surface of masks. Neither moderate thermal aging (less than 24 h at 80 and 95°C) nor gentle application of surface disinfectant sprays resulted in measurable loss of mask filter performance. Subject to bio-medical concurrence (additional checks for virus kill efficiency) and the use of low risk non-toxic disinfectants, such strategies, either individually or combined, by offering additional anti-viral properties or short term refreshing, may complement reuse options of professional masks or the now ubiquitous custom-made face masks with their often unknown filtration effectiveness. Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2020-09 2020-06-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7271865/ /pubmed/32834203 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2020.109251 Text en © 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article Celina, Mathew C. Martinez, Estevan Omana, Michael A. Sanchez, Andres Wiemann, Dora Tezak, Matthew Dargaville, Tim R. Extended use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic - Thermal conditioning and spray-on surface disinfection |
title | Extended use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic - Thermal conditioning and spray-on surface disinfection |
title_full | Extended use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic - Thermal conditioning and spray-on surface disinfection |
title_fullStr | Extended use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic - Thermal conditioning and spray-on surface disinfection |
title_full_unstemmed | Extended use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic - Thermal conditioning and spray-on surface disinfection |
title_short | Extended use of face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic - Thermal conditioning and spray-on surface disinfection |
title_sort | extended use of face masks during the covid-19 pandemic - thermal conditioning and spray-on surface disinfection |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7271865/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32834203 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polymdegradstab.2020.109251 |
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