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This video was written in collaboration with Aatish Bhatia - https://aatishb.com To learn more about using & decontaminating N95 masks: https://www.n95decon.org
Thanks to Manu Prakash for useful discussion and feedback (Manu is involved with the N95 decontamination project)
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The physics & engineering of N95 mask design is pretty incredible.
REFERENCES
10X efficiency of electrically charged fibers
"The electrostatic charge of N95 masks is a major contributor to their filtration efficiency, improving it at least 10-fold over uncharged fabric" (Tsai et al., Journal of Electrostatics 2002; Peter Tsai, personal communication).
Prakash Lab COVID-19 Response Group Working Draft Document on N95 masks: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aACcbkyZjR7nZy_wWeGQ9U2iGy0y4QajBeOL8RqAZIQ/edit
“Electrostatic charge contributes as much as 95% of the filtration efficiency” Molina, A., Vyas, P., Khlystov, N., Kumar, S., Kothari, A., Deriso, D., ... & Prakash, M. (2020). Project 1000 x 1000: Centrifugal melt spinning for distributed manufacturing of N95 filtering facepiece respirators. arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.13494. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.13494.pdf
Tsai, P. P., Schreuder-Gibson, H., & Gibson, P. (2002). Different electrostatic methods for making electret filters. Journal of electrostatics, 54(3-4), 333-341. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Phillip_Gibson/publication/222659741_Different_electrostatic_methods_for_making_electret_filters/links/5a5912cba6fdcc3bfb5ab21e/Different-electrostatic-methods-for-making-electret-filters.pdf
History of Electrets
Jefimenko, O. D., & Walker, D. K. (1980). Electrets. The Physics Teacher, 18(9), 651-659. https://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1.2340651
Physics of Air Filtration
Hinds, W. C. (1999). Aerosol technology: properties, behavior, and measurement of airborne particles. John Wiley & Sons. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Aerosol+Technology%3A+Properties%2C+Behavior%2C+and+Measurement+of+Airborne+Particles%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9780471194101
Scientific consortium for data-driven study of N95: https://www.n95decon.org/
N95 & virus particle sizes
Bałazy, A., Toivola, M., Adhikari, A., Sivasubramani, S. K., Reponen, T., & Grinshpun, S. A. (2006). Do N95 respirators provide 95% protection level against airborne viruses, and how adequate are surgical masks?. American journal of infection control, 34(2), 51-57. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.488.4644&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Harnish, D. A., Heimbuch, B. K., Husband, M., Lumley, A. E., Kinney, K., Shaffer, R. E., & Wander, J. D. (2013). Challenge of N95 filtering facepiece respirators with viable H1N1 influenza aerosols. Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 34(5), 494-499. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4646082/
Liao, L., Xiao, W., Zhao, M., Yu, X., Wang, H., Wang, Q., ... & Cui, Y. (2020). "Can N95 respirators be reused after disinfection? How many times?. ACS nano. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7202248/
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Masks were not recommended in the early stages of the pandemic in most countries because that would have cut into the limited supply of N95 masks that were prioritised for medical staff.
Then there wasn't much good evidence to show if COVID specifically could be stopped by masks, or if so, what kind of masks help and how much. Thankfully, many research groups took to the challenge and published paper after paper in rapid succession to show that, yes, masks help a lot, even if they're made at home from a t-shirt. E.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNeYfUTA11s
With the pandemic running rampant across the United States, the advice was updated.
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