The development of an alternative methodology to measure the particle
size allowed passing through face masks using a Scanning Electron
Microscopy
Abstract
At the end of 2019, in the city of Wuhan, China, a new highly infectious
coronavirus affecting the respiratory tract was announced. It was named
SARS-Cov2, causing deaths in the population. In the face of this global
health emergency, many medical and protective supplies were quickly
depleted, and some others of dubious quality emerged, including face
masks for medical and population use. Given this uncertainty, this
working group developed a complementary methodology to the wind tunnel,
a technique usually used to measure the efficiency of particle passage
in certified masks. A gravity-feed airbrush gun operating at a pressure
of 60 PSI was used for this purpose. Saline water at a concentration of
20 % NaCl was used as the impact liquid on the face mask, and the
deposition time was 1 s, emulating the time of sneezing or coughing. The
particles that passed through the face masks were deposited in sample
holders for scanning electron microscopy (SEM), where a 0.8 X 0.8 cm
slide was placed on their surface and the particles covered with an Au
film deposited by sputtering. The sizes of the NaCl particles that were
allowed to pass through the face masks were evaluated using
field-emission SEM (FSEM). It was found that at 0.5 cm between the
surface of the face mask and the deposit surface, distance between mask
and airbrush nozzle 2.5 cm and 1 s deposits, the particles allowed to
pass through the K95 and KN 95 masks were 85% and 88% respectively in
the range from 0.2 – 1-0 µm. Based on this methodology, some face masks
used daily by the population were evaluated, and the results are shown
in this work .