I've been hoping I could find a relatively easy way to sterilise, clean and reuse my coronavirus protection face masks, without the need of powerful disinfectants and alcohol (which are of course also in short supply). Then I came across this method online where a guy reckons it's possible to do all this with just soap, hot water and a toothbrush (it's almost as easy as washing your hands).
The guy plausibly (I thought) explains his method in a video:
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Could I please ask the 'experts' here in this newsgroup if they think this is a good idea... or not?
Obviously under lockdown you will want to avoid going out to buy disinfectant, so AIUI urine has antiviral properties. Soaking the masks in warm urine should destroy the virus.
This article confirms the virus is not detected in urine.
More acurately, Roger asked a similar question in UKPM which I answered by asking if the idea above would be any good. As I haven't got an aswer in UKPM I thought maybe I could get an answer in this group.
That is really the point I wanted some reassurance on. If the general consensus was that cleaning it that way does indeed destroy its filtering capabilities, I wasn't going to bother adopting this method.
Okay then, I've made a mental note, you think this method is a detrimental waste of time. Thanks for replying.
A strawman walks loose in the building, like a zombie.
Make it stop.
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All I can tell you, is "I pick disinfectant".
Preferably, a chemical that releases an oxidizer. Like a peroxide.
Something like peroxyacetic acid is used for surfaces.
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"Peracetic acid is always sold in solution as a mixture with acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide to maintain its stability."
Damn. Well, that stinks.
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"0.5% peroxyacetic acid, 3% hydrogen peroxide, or 500mg/L chlorine dioxide can be adopted for air disinfection, by way of aerosol spray, with 10-20ml/m³. Windows can be opened for ventilation after 60 minutes of reaction. After spray disinfection, the surface of objects may be wiped (swept) in the way of daily disinfection."
Of course, you also don't want to be breathing that in later, through the mask.
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"High dose irradiation over 10 kGy can completely sterilize a food, but is only used for products intended for those with severely compromised immune systems."
Using that knowledge, a google gets me.
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"Significant literature exists supporting the use of gamma radiation as a sterilization method, with viral inactivation of SARS-CoV reported at doses of at most 10 kGy, with other studies supporting 5 kGy for many types of viruses.
However, concerns have been raised about the radiation damaging the fiber material within the mask, specifically by causing cross-linking of polymers, leading to cracking and degradation during fitting and/or deployment
These results suggest against gamma, and possibly all ionizing radiation, as a method of disposable N95 sterilization. "
"Several methods of sterilizing N95 masks between uses are currently being studied across the world. The advantages of these methods and concerns regarding their use are summarized in Table 1.
Vaporized hydrogen peroxide and EtO treatments in particular are described in detail by Viscusi et al (2009) [2]; UV treatment procedures are described in Darnell & Taylor (2006) and Kumar et al (2015) "
Hydrogen peroxide, when it breaks down, releases H2O, so the "residue" happens to be relatively nice.
Just about any treatment, which is "hard on the lipid surface of the COVID-19 container", likely also has a potential to damage a synthetic fabric. Then it's a question of whether the damage compromises the function of the thing.
When they sterilize the mail sent to the politicians in Washington (the Post Office has some setup for this), it "makes the paper crispy". Yet, this is what it takes to keep people safe. The threat in these cases, is attempts to send anthrax to politicians, as a dust inside an envelope. Damaging the paper a bit, is the price they pay for this bit of treatment.
Summary: You can see from the one paper, that they're interested in making N95 masks last longer. But they're also not fooling around. That's why they were seriously considering gamma radiation. (You can't use that on lettuce because it makes the lettuce wilt, but it's good on ground beef.)
So, really not that okay to be used in a face mask disinfection.
Oh dear.
A nice comprehensive read - I'll put that down as another one being against the simple soap and water scrub, then.
It has been suggested that once used during a session, a N95 mask can be put aside for somewhere around a week to let any potential virus contamination die. Then it could be safely reused for another session. That would be a pretty simple method... if it truly was safe.
Unfortunately, you get mixed opinions for the microve idea when you run it through a Google search. This return, for example, says it's not a good idea:
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But, then, you are lucky to get full agreement on just about anything these days.
Well, bleach will certainly kill any virus contamination (and it's widely available) but once again the killjoys are out in force. This time saying, " ...don't use bleach, alcohol or household cleaners to disinfect masks as ingesting or inhaling these chemicals can be harmful."
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