<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the demand for medical masks and respirators exceeds the current global stockpile of these items, and there is a dire need to increase the production capacity. Considering that ionizing radiation has been used for sterilization of medical products for many years and electron beam (EB) irradiation enables the treatment of huge quantities of disposable medical products in a short time this method should be tested for the mask’s decontamination. In this work, three different filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) were irradiated with electron beams of 12 kGy and 25 kGy. The results confirmed that the decrease in filtration efficiency after irradiation of all respirators results from the elimination of the electric charge from the polypropylene (PP) fibers in the irradiation process. Moreover, the applied doses may affect the thermal stability of PP fabrics, while filtering materials structure and integrity have not changed after irradiation.</p>
</abstract>

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the demand for medical masks and respirators exceeds the current global stockpile of these items, and there is a dire need to increase the production capacity. Considering that ionizing radiation has been used for sterilization of medical products for many years and electron beam (EB) irradiation enables the treatment of huge quantities of disposable medical products in a short time this method should be tested for the mask’s decontamination. In this work, three different filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) were irradiated with electron beams of 12 kGy and 25 kGy. The results confirmed that the decrease in filtration efficiency after irradiation of all respirators results from the elimination of the electric charge from the polypropylene (PP) fibers in the irradiation process. Moreover, the applied doses may affect the thermal stability of PP fabrics, while filtering materials structure and integrity have not changed after irradiation.

Effect of electron beam irradiation on filtering facepiece respirators integrity and filtering efficiency

Faculty of Chemical and Process Engineering

Nukleonika

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the demand for medical masks and respirators exceeds the current global stockpile of these items, and...

Effect of electron beam irradiation on filtering facepiece respirators integrity and filtering efficiency

Article Category: Original Paper

Published Online: Jun 11, 2022

Page range: 23 - 33

Received: Mar 23, 2022

Accepted: May 16, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nuka-2022-0002

Keywords
Electron beam irradiation, Decontamination, PP filtering facepiece respirators, Industrial applications, Processing technologies, Nanoparticles filtration

© 2022 Dagmara Chmielewska et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Effect of electron beam irradiation on filtering facepiece respirators integrity and filtering efficiency

Article Category: Original Paper

Published Online: Jun 11, 2022

Page range: 23 - 33

Received: Mar 23, 2022

Accepted: May 16, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nuka-2022-0002

KeywordsElectron beam irradiation, Decontamination, PP filtering facepiece respirators, Industrial applications, Processing technologies, Nanoparticles filtration

© 2022 Dagmara Chmielewska et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Keywords
Electron beam irradiation, Decontamination, PP filtering facepiece respirators, Industrial applications, Processing technologies, Nanoparticles filtration