Investigation The Bacterial Filtration Efficiency Of Medical Masks From Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) Fabric

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic period caused attention to the importance of medical masks. Various studies show that mask fabrics should not be ordinary. Uncontrollably produced masks with poor quality have become an important problem in the market. Based on the idea that viruses spread by binding themselves to environmental bacteria and water droplets, it is assumed that the basic filtering efficiency of masks is of primary importance and requires the use of masks with a certain filtering ability. The purpose of the present study was to produce fabric masks from Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), and to investigate the filtration efficiency. Masks were produced from the developed PET fabric and widely used Meltblown (MB) fabric, which is known to have a high filtration rate and their filtration efficiencies were compared. EN 14683 BFE methods was used in laboratory setting to measure the filtration efficiency of the masks. It was found that the MB/3-layer mask had 99.7% (SD±0.2) capacity of filtering microorganisms and the 3-layer ART/Mask in the developed PET structure was capable of filtering microorganisms at a rate of 96.8% (SD±2.7). When the filtration efficiency of the masks detected for each microorganism was compared separately, no statistically significant differences were detected (p>0.05). The tested mask was found to have a similar high microbial filtration rate to the mask made of meltblown fabric. This suggests that it will reduce the spread of viruses by attaching themselves to bacteria from sick individuals. It is also it can has protective effect for nosocomial infections.