Durability of Disposable N95 Mask Material When Exposed to Improvised Ozone Gas Disinfection

Abstract

The principle finding of this report is that both commercial and a novel material used for N95 mask filters can endure many cycles of disinfection by ozone gas (20 ppm for 30 minutes) without detectable degradation or loss of filtration efficiency.  N95 masks and surgical masks (hereafter referred to as masks) typically use a filtration material fabricated from meltblown polypropylene.  To achieve maximum filtration efficiency while maintaining a reasonable pressure drop, these nonwoven fabrics are also electrostatically charged (corona discharge is the most common method used), to maximize attraction and capture of aerosols and solid particulates.  Under normal circumstances, the reuse of masks is generally discouraged, but in times of crisis has become a necessity, making disinfection after each use a necessity.  To be acceptable, any disinfection procedure must cause minimal degradation to the performance of the filter material.  Possible performance degradation mechanisms include mechanical damage, loss of electrostatic charge, or both.  One of the most practical and direct ways to measure combined mechanical and electrostatic integrity, and the subsequent ability to reuse mask filter material, is by the direct measurement of filtration efficiency. In this paper, we report that small numbers of disinfection cycles at reasonable virucidal doses of ozone do not significantly degrade the filtration efficiency of meltblown polypropylene filter material. By comparison, laundering quickly results in a significant loss of filtration efficiency and requires subsequent recharging to restore the electrostatic charge and filtration efficiency. A common assumption among biomedical scientists that ozone is far too destructive for this application.  However, these direct measurements show that mask materials, specifically the filtration material, can withstand dozens of ozone disinfection cycles without any measurable degradation of filtration efficiency, nor any visible discoloration or loss of fiber integrity.  The data are clear: when subjected to a virucidal dose of ozone for a much longer duration than is required for viral inactivation, there was no degradation of N95 filtration efficiency.  The specific dosages of ozone needed for ~99% viral inactivation are thought to be at least 10 ppm for up to 30 minutes based upon an extensive literature review, but to standardize our testing, we consider a dose of 20 ppm for 30 minutes to be a reasonable and conservatively high ozone disinfection cycle.  The material tested in this study withstood dosages of up to 200 ppm for 90 minutes, or alternatively 20 ppm for up to 36 hours, without detectable degradation, and further testing suggests that up to 30 or more disinfection cycles (at 20 ppm for 30 minutes) would result in less than a 5% loss of filtration efficiency. This report does not address the effect of ozone cycling on other mask components, such as elastics.