Construction and validation of UV-C decontamination cabinets for filtering facepiece respirators

• DOI: 10.1364/ao.401602
• Publication Date: 2020-07-17T20:00:07Z
• Authors: Martin Purschke; Mazzin Elsamaloty; Jeffrey P. Wilde; Nichole Starr; R. Rox Anderson; William A. Farinelli; Fernanda H. Sakamoto; Maryann Tung; Joshua Tam; Lambertus Hesselink; Thomas M. Baer
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 03 medical and health sciences; Ozone; Air Filters; Ultraviolet Rays; Equipment Reuse; Masks; Temperature; Humidity; Equipment Design; Decontamination

We present evidence-based design principles for three different UV-C based decontamination systems for N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) within the context of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak of 2019–2020. The approaches used here were created with consideration for the needs of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and other under-resourced facilities. As such, a particular emphasis is placed on providing cost-effective solutions that can be implemented in short order using generally available components and subsystems. We discuss three optical designs for decontamination chambers, describe experiments verifying design parameters, validate the efficacy of the decontamination for two commonly used N95 FFRs (3M, #1860 and Gerson #1730), and run mechanical and filtration tests that support FFR reuse for at least five decontamination cycles.