Examination of the effectiveness of filtering half masks protection at various flow rates of aerosol contaminants

Abstract

The possibility of air contamination by biological agents, by natural or artificial way, requires the improvement and use of different means for respiratory protection. The paper presents comparative filtration efficiency testing of different filtering half masks models, in order to determine the possibility of using this means for respiratory protection of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Army members. As a test agent and an appropriate simulator of biological aerosols is used solid NaCl aerosol. Determination of the concentration of the test aerosol at various flow rates was performed by flame photometry method. It was found that all the tested models are manufactured from filtering material of high quality and that filtering materials of lower quality shows less differences between filtering characteristics at lower flow rates. The high efficiency of the tested filtering half masks models provides an opportunity for their use in respiratory protection.