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The rapid progression of the COVID‐19 pandemic revealed an inability to meet increased demand for N95 respirators. These respirators are designed to be used once and disposed, but throughout the pandemic, there was a need for their decontamination and reuse. This research investigates the effect of various decontamination methods on the chemical and mechanical properties of N95 mask straps made of natural rubber to explore how these straps change after decontamination and what materials characterization techniques are well‐suited to evaluate these changes. Using results from ozone decontamination, tensile testing of mask strap assemblies is identified as the most reliable way to quantify changes in strap properties with decontamination and reuse when compared to other analytical techniques. Additionally, visible strap degradation often precedes both strap failure and material property changes and can be a reasonable indicator to discontinue use. Aside from ozone, decontamination with other methods such as heat and UV light appears to be less damaging to the tested materials. Beyond the specific results presented, this study provides insight on testing strategies that can be employed to move forward with evaluating new materials and decontamination methods for use in future pandemics or in more resource‐limited regions.
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VeriMask: Facilitating Decontamination of N95 Masks in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges, Lessons Learned, and Safeguarding the Future
The US CDC has recognized moist-heat as one of the most effective and accessible methods of decontaminating N95 masks for reuse in response to the persistent N95 mask shortages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it is challenging to reliably deploy this technique in healthcare settings due to a lack of smart technologies capable of ensuring proper decontamination conditions of hundreds of masks simultaneously. To tackle these challenges, we developed an open-source wireless sensor platform---VeriMask1 ---that facilitates per-mask verification of the moist-heat decontamination process. VeriMask is capable of monitoring hundreds of masks simultaneously in commercially available heating systems and provides a novel throughput-maximization functionality to help operators optimize the decontamination settings. We evaluate VeriMask in laboratory and real-scenario clinical settings and find that it effectively detects decontamination failures and operator errors in multiple settings and increases the mask decontamination throughput. Our easy-to-use, low-power, low-cost, scalable platform integrates with existing hospital protocols and equipment, and can be broadly deployed in under-resourced facilities to protect front-line healthcare workers by lowering their risk of infection from reused N95 masks. We also memorialize the design challenges, guidelines, and lessons learned from developing and deploying VeriMask during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Our hope is that by reflecting and reporting on this design experience, technologists and front-line health workers will be better prepared to collaborate for future pandemics, regarding mask decontamination, but also other forms of crisis tech.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2031077
- PAR ID:
- 10295616
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
- Volume:
- 5
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 2474-9567
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 29
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3478105
