An Empirical Equation for Rapid Validation of the Performance of Commercial N95 Equivalent Respirators
            
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                更新:2024-05-19 15:22:11
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                口头报告
            
            
            
                摘要
                The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of wearing effective facepiece filtering respirators (FFRs) to reduce infection and disease transmission. One of the reasons causing the widespread prevalence was found to be the failure of N95-Equivalent FFRs (N95-EFs), i.e., efficiency <<95%, during the pandemic. To investigate the reasons causing the ineffectiveness of commercial N95-EFs, this study measured the efficiency of several dozens of commercially available N95-EFs following standard testing protocols. The specifications of the N95-EF including fiber diameter, solidity and surface potential of the main layer media of N95-EFs were also determined. We provide a simple method for manufacturers to quickly screen the efficiencies of their N95-EF products before distributing them to the market. We found that the failures of N95-EF are majorly attributed to overprediction of the efficiency due to i) missing neutralization of challenging particles, ii) too small or oversize of challenging particles, and iii) particle detectors with large sizing limits (>500 nm). Based on the pressure drop, respirator area, and surface potential of the N95-EFs, an empirical equation is developed to fast screen and help design effective N95-EFs.  
 
             
            
                关键词
                COVID-19, N95, facepiece filtering respirators, pressure drop, efficiency, empirical equation
             
            
            
                    稿件作者
                    
                        
                                    
                                                                                                                        
                                    Yu Zhang
                                    中国矿业大学
                                
                                    
                                        
                                                                            
                                    Sheng-Chieh Chen
                                    Virginia Commonwealth University
                                
                                             
                          
    
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