Woolverton Christopher J, Peeps Craig, Seidel Joan, Eng Abbey
College of Public Health, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, USA.
City of Kent Fire Department, Kent, Ohio, USA.
Appl Biosaf. 2020 Sep 1;25(3):130-131. doi: 10.1177/1535676020936379.
The 2019 novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, has caused an unprecedented use of personal protective equipment (PPE), especially the disposable filtering facepiece respirator (FFR), N95. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has provided crisis capacity strategies for FFR decontamination and reuse, including the drying of N95s in paper bags for 5 days to remove the moisture that could maintain virus viability.
We tested the ability of food-grade silica bead packets to accelerate moisture removal from N95s during 24-hour time periods.
Briefly, N95s sprayed with water were completely dehydrated by silica beads within 24 hours, as measured with a commercial moisture meter. Importantly, repeated wetting and drying (with silica) did not decrease the N95 ability to exclude the bitter taste of Bitrex during standard fit testing.
We conclude that food-grade silica beads can desiccate wet N95s over 24 hours, removing moisture.
2019新型冠状病毒SARS-CoV-2导致了个人防护装备（PPE）前所未有的使用，尤其是一次性过滤面罩呼吸器（FFR）N95。疾病控制与预防中心提供了FFR去污和再利用的危机应对策略，包括将N95在纸袋中干燥5天，以去除可能维持病毒活力的水分。
我们测试了食品级硅胶珠包在24小时内加速N95去除水分的能力。
简而言之，用商用湿度计测量，喷水的N95在24小时内被硅胶珠完全脱水。重要的是，在标准的适合性测试中，反复湿润和干燥（使用硅胶）并未降低N95排除苦味剂苦味的能力。
我们得出结论，食品级硅胶珠可在24小时内干燥潮湿的N95，去除水分。
