Aerosol blocking assessment by different types of fabrics for homemade respiratory masks: spectroscopy and imaging study

  1. Carla Denari Giuliani
  2. Mauricio Foschini
  3. Adamo Ferreira Gomes Monte
  4. Ana Caroline Moreira Mendes
  5. Alexandre Maletta
  6. Renata Scarabucci Janones
  7. Bruna Aparecida Rodrigues Duarte
  8. Kleber Del-Claro

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Abstract

Objectives: Due to the crisis in protective equipment caused by a pandemic, it generates needs for equipment rationing among professionals working in the health area, with the need for many health professionals to use homemade masks. Therefore, this is a comparative study regarding the relative efficiencies of commercial respiratory masks (medical masks) and homemade fabric masks.Methods: A liquid aerosol line was created that passes through a chamber with 6 optical windows that allows the fixation of tissue or masks in the aerosol flow. The measures used two spectroscopic techniques that made it possible to relate the amount of aerosols with the scattering of light..Results: Fabrics with a higher percentage of cotton, and a greater number of layers and more closed wefts proved to be more efficient in blocking aerosols, however, fabrics without treatments obtained results far below the real needs of professionals working in the health area, with efficiency below 75% for liquid aerosols among the tissues tested.Conclusion: Homemade masks prove to be effective in reducing the spread of the virus among ordinary citizens in past infections, the efficiency of homemade masks is very low for health professionals who are directly exposed to the biological agent, so, it is necessary for public administrations to seek new alternatives with greater efficiency for this type of professional during the absence of surgical masks and n95.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.26.20100529: (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 10.23954/osj.v6i1.2721
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.26.20100529v1 on medRxiv