A Plasma-Generating N-95 Respirator Decontamination Unit Created from a Microwave Oven
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Abstract
Wearing a mask population-wide is an important preventive measure in addressing COVID-19 and potential future pandemics. We showed how a household microwave oven, a coat-hanger, and a coffee cup can generate plasma that can be used to decontaminate N95 respirators in less than 1 minute. We proved that microwave-generated plasma can reduce infectivity of the Tulane virus and the transmissible gastroenteritis virus (TGEV) on N95 respirators by > 3-log<sub>10</sub>. We further studied the Tulane virus by molecular assays to understand inactivation mechanisms, and we found that the plasma damages both viral proteins and genomes. Spectroscopy of the plasma revealed OH and C-containing radicals as the most prevalent active species expected to cause virus inactivation. The respirators still maintained filtration and fit even after 10 cycles of the plasma treatment. We believe that microwave-generated plasma is an easily accessible respirator decontamination technique that everyone could use for safe respirator reuse.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.28.20163915: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not 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 …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.28.20163915: (What is this?)
Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.
Table 1: Rigor
Institutional Review Board Statement not detected. Randomization not detected. Blinding not detected. Power Analysis not detected. Sex as a biological variable not 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.
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