A practical PPE decontamination method using warm air and ambient humidity

  1. Jesse J. Kwiek
  2. Christopher R. Pickett
  3. Chloe A. Flanigan
  4. Marcia V. Lee
  5. Linda J. Saif
  6. Jeff Jahnes
  7. Greg Blonder

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Abstract

Despite a year-and-a-half of Sars-CoV-2 pandemic experience, personal protective equipment (PPE) remains in short supply 1 . Current decontamination methods are complex, slow, expensive and particularly ill-suited for low to middle income nations where the need is greatest. We propose a low temperature, ambient humidity decontamination method (WASP-D) based on the thirty minute or less half-life of Sars-CoV-2 (and other common pathogens) at temperatures above 45°C, combined with the observation that most PPE are designed to be safely transported and stored at temperatures below 50°C. Decontamination at 12 hours, 46°C (115°F) and ambient humidity should consistently reduce SARS-CoV-2 viral load by a factor of 10 6 , without negatively affecting PPE materials or performance.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.12.380196v2 on bioRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.12.380196: (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.
    Cell Line Authenticationnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Cell Lines
    SentencesResources
    To detect cytopathogenicity (CPE) caused by the virus, BCoV-infected and uninfected (control) MDBK cells were imaged in a SpectraMax Imaging Cytometer (Molecular Devices) at a 5-millisecond exposure.
    MDBK
    suggested: None

    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.
    • No funding statement was detected.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.12.380196v1 on bioRxiv