An Efficient Ethanol-Vacuum Method for the Decontamination and Restoration of Polypropylene Microfiber Medical Masks & Respirators

Albert I. Nazeeri; Isaac A. Hilburn; Daw-An Wu; Kabir A. Mohammed; D. Yovan Badal; Moses H.W. Chan; Joseph L. Kirschvink

Vacuum pumps of sufficient strength to reach the pressure levels needed are common industrial products available from a few hundred dollars, are often used in high-school science demonstrations, and are present in many research labs around the globe. These could be used easily during this pandemic in virtually any clinical environment. Such vacuums are also used on industrial scales for a variety of processes, and could be added easily to other major decontamination procedures like the hydrogen peroxide treatment 15, 16 . Our mask testing setup costs around $3k, much lower than the $65k for an industry-standard testing rig with similar functionality but using ASHRAE aerosol standards. We discuss these limitations in the next section. Even our current figure could be pushed down to less than $500 if cheaper particle counters can be validated, as our setup uses an expensive particle counter that we happened to have on hand.