Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness

July 2, 2020

A Scalable Method of Applying Heat and Humidity for Decontamination of N95 Respirators during the COVID-19 Crisis

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  • There was no significant degradation of mask filtration efficiency in tests of the effect of a heating protocol for sterilizing masks prior to reuse in a selection of N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirators. Three out of five models passed fit testing after heating, and the two models that did not pass fit testing also had low fit scores prior to heating.  
  • The authors conclude this heating protocol is practical for application inside healthcare facilities.  

Anderegg et al. (July 1, 2020). A Scalable Method of Applying Heat and Humidity for Decontamination of N95 Respirators during the COVID-19 Crisis. PloS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234851