The properties of hot household hygroscopic materials and their potential use for non-medical facemask decontamination

PLoS One. 2021 Sep 7;16(9):e0255148. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255148. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

The widespread use of facemasks throughout the population is recommended by the WHO to reduce transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As some regions of the world are facing mask shortages, reuse may be necessary. However, used masks are considered as a potential hazard that may spread and transmit disease if they are not decontaminated correctly and systematically before reuse. As a result, the inappropriate decontamination practices that are commonly witnessed in the general public are challenging management of the epidemic at a large scale. To achieve public acceptance and implementation, decontamination procedures need to be low-cost and simple. We propose the use of hot hygroscopic materials to decontaminate non-medical facemasks in household settings. We report on the inactivation of a viral load on a facial mask exposed to hot hygroscopic materials for 15 minutes. As opposed to recent academic studies whereby decontamination is achieved by maintaining heat and humidity above a given value, a more flexible procedure is proposed here using a slow decaying pattern, which is both effective and easier to implement, suggesting straightforward public deployment and hence reliable implementation by the population.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19 / prevention & control
  • Decontamination / methods*
  • Equipment Reuse / standards*
  • Hot Temperature
  • Humans
  • Humidity
  • Masks / virology*
  • SARS-CoV-2

Grants and funding

SH, WJ, MLA, "Investments for the future" Program (Idex University of Bordeaux OPE-2020-0208) The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.