Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

A Simple and Cheap Aerosol Penetrometer for Filter Testing Using an Electronic Cigarette

Sebastian Lifka
* ORCID logo ,
Ivan Ponomarev
,
Agnes Weth
,
David Baumgartner
,
Bernd Lamprecht
,
Werner Baumgartner
ORCID logo
Version 1 : Received: 18 December 2020 / Approved: 21 December 2020 / Online: 21 December 2020 (09:34:50 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Lifka, S.; Ponomarev, I.; Weth, A.; Baumgartner, D.; Lamprecht, B.; Baumgartner, W. A Simple and Cheap Aerosol Penetrometer for Filter Testing Using an Electronic Cigarette. Open Research Europe, 2021, 1, 5. https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.13087.1. Lifka, S.; Ponomarev, I.; Weth, A.; Baumgartner, D.; Lamprecht, B.; Baumgartner, W. A Simple and Cheap Aerosol Penetrometer for Filter Testing Using an Electronic Cigarette. Open Research Europe, 2021, 1, 5. https://doi.org/10.12688/openreseurope.13087.1.

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic face masks grew in importance as their use by the general population was recommended by health officials in order to minimize the risk of infection and prevent further spread of the virus. To ensure health protection of medical personal and other system relevant staff, it is of considerable interest to quickly test if a certain lot of filtering facepiece masks meets the requirements or if the permeability changes under different conditions. As certified penetrometers are rather expensive and were difficult to obtain during the COVID-19 pandemic, we describe two quite simple and cheap methods to quickly test the filter permeability based on an electronic cigarette. The first method uses a precision scale, the second method uses a light scattering detector to measure the filter penetration. To make sure these two methods yield reliable results, both were tested with freshly cut filter samples covering the range of approx. 7% to 60% permeability and compared to the results of a certified penetrometer. The comparison of the two methods with the certified penetrometer showed a good correlation and therefore allow a quick and rather reliable estimation of the permeability. Several examples about the use of faulty masks and the resulting health risks show that simple, fast, cheap and broadly available methods for filter characterization might be useful in these days.

Supplementary and Associated Material

https://github.com/SebastianLifka/AerosolPenetrometer_LightScatteringDetector: GitHub repository containing all underlying data

Keywords

Filter; face masks; penetrometer; electronic cigarette; COVID-19; light scattering detector

Subject

Engineering, Bioengineering

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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