Wearing a face mask is the key step to ensure your protection during the pandemic. High demand for personal protective equipment may make a shortage in your area. In such a situation you have to disinfect and reuse your PPEs. specially face masks.
Do you know?
You can reuse N95 face masks for 20 times with simple disinfection procedure. Yes, It is simple. You just have to bake mask. Let’s learn step by step disinfection procedure with your oven at home.
If you are on environmental-friendly lifestyle. You may struggle with new wastes generating in the pandemic situation. Due to the frequency of usage, face masks become the major solid waste in your bin. If we reuse a mask several times, we can reduce this new environmental problem too.
We can find three types of masks.
- Fabric
- Surgical
- Respirators (Eg: FFP2, FFP3, N95, N99)
Before the pandemic, It was not recommended to reuse any of the above-mentioned masks. But, recently Professor Yi Cu from Stanford University has introduced two methods to disinfect N95 masks. Those methods do not lose filtration efficiency up to certain cycles.
One method use UV (254 nm) rays. Other one uses Hot air. That means backing.
How to bake mask at home
For the cleaning procedure, you want a paper bag and oven bag and your oven at home.
N95 masks need to bake at 75°C for 30 min to disinfect. This ensures the destruction of microbes on the mask fabric. Especially proteins of virus denture at this temperature.
Follow the following steps to bake your face masks.
- First, heat your oven at 75°C. Do not overheat.
- Then place your N95 masks into the paper bag
- Fold over the top of the paper bag. Simultaneously, you can bake several masks in separate bags.
- Place the paper bags in an oven bag and seal it.
- Place the sealed oven bag in the preheated oven.
- Bake for 30 min.
- After that. Cool the mask and wear.
Don’t forget to Ensure the mask is free with damages before usage.
You can follow the above steps for 20 times for N95 masks. At the 20th time, it ensures the filtration efficiency at 95.96%.
How to disinfect other face masks.
If you are using surgical face masks do not reuse. There is no way to disinfect surgical face masks safely. This types of face masks manufacture only for single use.
But fabric masks can disinfect using a water bath.
Boil your fabric face mask for 10 minutes at 100°C in a water bath. Dry it completely before reuse. Moisture may collect more germs inside your mask.
This guide will help to manage your limited resources. Baking face masks alone will not ensure your protection. Don’t forget to Follow 1 meter distance and wash your hands with soap frequently. Stay safe!
