Preprint
Article
A Scalable Method for Ultraviolet C Disinfection of Surgical Facemasks Type IIR and Filtering Facepiece Particle Respirators 1 and 2
This version is not peer-reviewed.
Submitted:
21 April 2020
Posted:
23 April 2020
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Abstract
Due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic a shortage of personal protective equipment, including surgical facemasks and Filtering Facepiece Particle Respirators has occurred. SARS-CoV-2 has a 79,5-82% homology to SARS-CoV. The SARS-CoV UVC sensitivity is described in literature. We have performed UVC transmission measurements of surgical facemasks and respirators. In addition, we performed UVC disinfection experiments of S. aureus with surgical facemasks and respirators. Results show that we can achieve an 8-log reduction of S. aureus in the inner layers of FFP1 respirators and the exterior of surgical facemasks. Furthermore, we showed a 7-log reduction of S. aureus in the inner layers of FFP2 respirators. We conclude that UVC disinfection is an effective, safe and scalable method for reuse of surgical facemask and respirators.
Keywords:
SARS-CoV2
; UVC
; disinfeciton
; respirators
; reuse
Copyright: This open access article is published under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license, which permit the free download, distribution, and reuse, provided that the author and preprint are cited in any reuse.
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