COVID-19 Global Pandemic Planning: Decontamination and Reuse Processes for N95 Respirators

Douglas Jay Perkins; Steven Villescas; Terry H Wu; Timothy B Muller; Steven Bradfute; Ivy Foo-Hurwitz; Qiuying Cheng; Hannah Wilcox; Myissa Weiss; Chris Bartlett; Jens Langsjoen; Phil Seidenberg

One published report from an FDA award to Battelle Memorial Institute investigated decontamination of N95 FFRs (3M model 1860) using hydrogen peroxide vapor (up to 50 cycles) delivered from a Bioquell Clarus C HPV decontamination system 4 . The study found that aerosol collection efficiency and air flow resistance were not affected over the 50 cycles of reprocessing. Although no visible degradation of the elastic straps was observed at up to 20 cycles, after 30 cycles the elastic straps showed signs of fragmentation upon stretching. The Battelle study also measured decontamination properties using a biological indicator (BI), Geobacillus stearothermophilus, since this spore-forming organism has resistance . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license It is made available under a author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.