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Updated: Jul 4, 2025

Determining Viral Disinfection Efficacy of Hot Water Laundering
Published on: June 21, 2022
N95 respirator hybrid decontamination method using Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) coupled with
Thirumaaran Gopalan1, Mohd Ridha Muhamad1,2, Victor Chee Wai Hoe3
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Abstract:
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has induced a critical supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) especially N95 respirators. Utilizing respirator decontamination procedures to reduce the pathogen load of a contaminated N95 respirator can be a viable solution for reuse purposes. In this study, the efficiency of a novel hybrid respirator decontamination method of ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) which utilizes ultraviolet-C (UV-C) rays coupled with microwave-generated steam (MGS) against feline coronavirus (FCoV) was evaluated. The contaminated 3M 1860 respirator pieces were treated with three treatments (UVGI-only, MGS-only, and Hybrid-UVGI + MGS) with variable time. The virucidal activity was evaluated using the TCID50 method. The comparison of decontamination efficiency of the treatments indicated that the hybrid method achieved at least a pathogen log reduction of 4 logs, faster than MGS and UVGI. These data recommend that the proposed hybrid decontamination system is more effective comparatively in achieving pathogen log reduction of 4 logs.
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