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Effect of Ultraviolet C Disinfection Treatment on the Nanomechanical and Topographic Properties of N95 Respirator Filtration Microfibers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 September 2020

Yujie Meng ,
Rae Zeng ,
Kurt Rubin  and
Kelly Barry
Yujie Meng*
Affiliation:
KLA Corporation, 205 Perimeter Park, Suite C, Knoxville, TN, 37922, U.S.A.
Rae Zeng
Affiliation:
KLA Corporation, 1 Technology Drive, Milpitas, CA, 95035, U.S.A.
Kurt Rubin
Affiliation:
KLA Corporation, 1 Technology Drive, Milpitas, CA, 95035, U.S.A.
Kelly Barry
Affiliation:
KLA Corporation, 1 Technology Drive, Milpitas, CA, 95035, U.S.A.
*
*Corresponding Author: Email: yujie.meng@kla.com

Abstract

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Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) N95 filtering facepiece respirator (FFR) treatment is considered an effective decontamination approach to address the supply shortage of N95 FFRs during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In this study, we investigated the nanomechanical and topographic properties of filtration fibers that have been exposed to different doses of UVC radiation. UVC exposure was shown to decrease both Young's modulus (E), hardness (H) and fiber width, as measured on individual polypropylene (PP) fibers. Our results also show that the PP microfiber layer loses its strength when N95 respirators are exposed to an accumulated UVC dose during the process of decontamination, and the PP fiber width also exhibits a logarithmic decrease during UVC exposure. The nanoscale measurement results on individual fibers suggest that maximum cycles of UVC disinfection treatment should be limited due to excessive accumulated dose, which has the potential to decrease the fiber breaking strength.

Type
Articles
Information
MRS Advances , Volume 5 , Issue 56: Materials advances in application to COVID-19 related challenges , 2020 , pp. 2863 - 2872
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020, published on behalf of Materials Research Society by Cambridge University Press

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