Effect of Dry Heat and Autoclave Decontamination Cycles on N95 FFRs

  1. Cole Meisenhelder
  2. Loïc Anderegg
  3. Andrew Preecha
  4. Chiu Oan Ngooi
  5. Lei Liao
  6. Wang Xiao
  7. Steven Chu
  8. Yi Cui
  9. John M. Doyle

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Abstract

Current shortages of Filtering Facepiece Respirators (FFRs) have created a demand for effective methods for N95 decontamination and reuse. Before implementing any reuse strategy it is important to determine what effects the proposed method has on the physical functioning of the FFR. Here we investigate the effects of two potential methods for decontamination; dry heat at 95 °C, and autoclave treatments. We test both fit and filtration efficiency for each method. For the dry heat treatment we consider the 3M 1860, 3M 1870, and 3M8210+ models. After five cycles of the dry heating method, all three FFR models pass both fit and filtration tests, showing no degradation. For the autoclave tests we consider the 3M 1870, and the 3M 8210+. We find significant degradation of the FFRs following the 121 °C autoclave cycles. The molded mask tested (3M 8210+) failed fit testing after just 1 cycle in the autoclave. The pleated (3M 1870) mask passed fit testing for 5 cycles, but failed filtration testing. The 95 °C dry heat cycle is scalable to over a thousand masks per day in a hospital setting, and is above the temperature which has been shown to achieve the requisite 3 log kill of SARS-CoV-2[1], making it a promising method for N95 decontamination and reuse.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.29.20114199: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.29.20114199v1 on medRxiv