The U.S. Forcing 3M to Ship Masks from Offshore Plants to the U.S.

The Mask Market Could Soar from a few billion per year to hundreds of billions

Studies Document the Air Transmission of the Virus

Halyard Proposal for Mask Making Equipment Anticipating a Pandemic Rejected in 2018

More than 40 Designs of Facemask Available from Halyard

H&M Making N95 Masks through Chinese Plant

Honeywell to Produce 20 million N95 Masks per month in the Phoenix and RI Plants

3M Targeting 2 billion N95 Masks per Year by Early 2021.

Keeping Score on Medical and N95 Mask Production

Shortage of Meltblown Fabric for Face Masks

Sinopec can Make 5 million N95 Masks per day

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The U.S. Forcing 3M to Ship Masks from Offshore Plants to the U.S.

The Trump administration is trying to use its wartime powers to cut off 3M’s ability to export face masks abroad, as well as claim more of the masks the company manufactures in other countries for use in the United States. Such a policy would be a dramatic expansion of the U.S. government’s reach as it seeks to procure much-needed protective gear for American health care workers.

But some trade and legal experts fear new mandates could backfire, causing other governments to clamp down on exports of masks, ventilator parts and pharmaceuticals that the United States desperately needs. They have also questioned whether the Defense Production Act gives the government the authority to commandeer goods made beyond United States borders.

In a statement on Friday, 3M said that the administration had requested that 3M increase the amount of respirators the company imports from its overseas operations into the United States, and that 3M was complying. Earlier this week, it secured approval from China to export to the United States 10 million N95 respirators the company makes in China, it said.

The company added that the administration had also asked 3M to stop exporting respirators that are manufactured in the United States to Canada and Latin America — a request it said carried “significant humanitarian implications” for people in those countries. (this is the evaluation covered in the McIlvaine presentation during the April 2 webinar which provides a metric to make these decisions without the need for making humanitarian decisions arbitrarily)

The Mask Market Could Soar From a Few Billion Per Year to Hundreds of Billions

At a choir practice in a Washington State Church in February precautions including sanitizing everything and social distancing were taken during the two hours when 60 people assembled.  Yet 45 of them contracted the coronavirus. The conclusion was that the act of singing created an air transmission route which was deadly. Hundreds of Diamond Princess passengers were not infected until they spent weeks in their cabins breathing the air from a common HVAC system.

When the air transmission of droplets smaller than 5 microns is accompanied by interaction of individuals who may not show symptoms you create a situation where masks become very important. It is not surprising that the Chinese death toll per capita is very small compared to Italy. For Chinese efficient masks have been purchased for years.

Vogmask opened its first retail store in China in 2013.  This U.S. based company had all the needed testing on efficiency and resistance done by Nelson laboratories.

These stores have the aura of a sportswear store elsewhere in the world. The masks sell for $33 but can be washed 20 or more times.

If just ten percent of the world’s population wore these masks that would be 800 million wearers  With 20 wearings the cost per wearing would be $1.50.  This alone would create a $1.2 billion per day market or $438 billion per year.

But the poorer people could also be wearing effective masks. China is making N95 quality masks with a nanofiber laminate on a cotton backing.  The masks can be washed at least 20 times at a cost per day of just 15 cents.

 

If 2 billion people were wearing these masks the cost would be $300 million per day. Or $109 billion per year.  This would create a market of over $500 billion per year for mask makers. Based on the cost of a life lost at $50 million this expense can be justified if just 10,000 lives are saved per year.

The question for media and mask makers is how long will this boom last? The answer is very likely 36 months and very possibly permanently. It is expected that the southern hemisphere will experience an epidemic during the northern summer. Then infected individuals will travel North and there will be a spike in the winter of 2020-21.

The practice of wearing masks is likely to be permanent for the following reasons

·         Fear of another pandemic with a new virus

·         Realization that there are millions of cases of flu each year and some can be prevented

·         The emotional phenomena  which could cause an exaggerated view of the risk similar to fear of being eaten by a shark if swimming in the ocean.

·         Demonstration of compassion – not wanting to infect anyone with anything

The nanofiber laminates create all sorts of possibilities. There are also new designs available which provide a permanent mask with replaceable media.  At least one Chinese company is offering this design. Exxon Mobil just announced a design which provides improved coverage of  the nose and mouth in a structure which can withstand repeated sterilization. A replaceable cartridge with N95 efficiency is utilized. 

Exxon Mobil is waiting for FDA approval and then hopes to produce 40,000 masks and cartridges per hour.

Studies Document the Air Transmission of the Virus

Air contaminated with the COVID-19 virus might travel four times farther than the 6 feet the CDC asks we distance ourselves, according to a recent study.

The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that under the right conditions, liquid droplets from sneezes, coughs and just exhaling can travel more than 26 feet and linger in the air for minutes.

Findings such as these may have some bearing on the CDC's recommendation on Friday that Americans wear non-surgical face masks in public — especially in places "where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain."

 

 

Halyard Proposal for Mask Making Equipment  Anticipating A Pandemic Rejected in 2018

In September 2018, the Trump administration received detailed plans for a new machine designed to churn out millions of protective respirator masks at high speed during a pandemic.

The plans, submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) by medical manufacturer O&M Halyard, were the culmination of a venture unveiled almost three years earlier by the Obama administration. But HHS did not proceed with making the machine.

The project was one of two N95 mask ventures — totaling $9.8 million — that the federal government embarked on over the past five years to better prepare for pandemics.

The other involved the development of reusable masks to replace the single-use variety.

 

The Halyard contract was part of an explicit strategy to ensure we could surge mask production in the next crisis,” said Nicole Lurie, who was the HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response under Barack Obama.  The projects did not proceed. The company is expanding N95 production and may consider this approach as part of the program.

More than 40 Designs of Facemask Available from Halyard

The various designs from Halyard contain features which might be more widely adapted in the pandemic era.  One with an expanded chamber would assumedly offer more surface area and therefore less resistance. So that a more efficient media could be used with no more pressure drop than the standard mask.

HALYARD* Blue Level 1 Surgical mask meets all five ASTM requirements for level 1 protection and comes with an expanded chamber to provide the user with additional space.

Halyard also has a high filtration face mask with 97% BFE and PFE ratings

 

H&M Making N95 Masks Through Chinese Plant

Sweden’s H&M, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, said on Friday it had started production of protective face masks for hospital staff and would ship the first batches to Spain and Italy.

“At this first stage, 100,000 face masks will be produced and ready for delivery on April 2. Half will go to Italy and half to Spain. It is a factory in China that makes the masks,” a H&M spokeswoman said in an email.

H&M in early April said it was looking into using its supply network to source personal protective equipment for hospitals to help curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The masks are of the N95/FFP2 standard that protects from the droplets through which the virus spreads.

Honeywell to Produce 20 million N95 Masks per Month in the Phoenix and RI Plants

Honeywell announced that it is adding manufacturing capabilities in Phoenix to produce N95 face masks in support of the U.S. government’s response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

 

The company’s Phoenix expansion, coupled with previously announced new production in Rhode Island, will allow Honeywell to produce more than 20 million N95 disposable masks monthly to combat COVID-19 in the U.S. New manufacturing equipment to support the effort will arrive in Phoenix beginning this week.

 

“We at Honeywell are proud of our role in providing essential equipment to the first responders and medical professionals we are relying on during this crisis,” said Darius Adamczyk, Honeywell chairman and chief executive officer. “We have moved quickly to expand our production capacity for N95 masks globally and are pleased to announce our second new U.S. manufacturing line to supply the Strategic National Stockpile.”

 

Honeywell anticipates that the new mask production line in Phoenix will create more than 500 new jobs in Arizona. The company has already begun recruiting, hiring and training manufacturing workers on the site. Today’s announcement brings the total number of U.S. jobs created by Honeywell’s new mask manufacturing capabilities to more than 1,000.

 

The N95 face masks will be delivered to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to contribute to the American stockpile for use to support health, safety and emergency response workers. The Phoenix facility will prioritize fulfilling the U.S. government’s procurement, but it will also have the capacity to produce face masks for U.S. states and American healthcare and emergency response organizations.

 

Honeywell’s production expansion will also support additional American businesses, including industrial equipment providers and raw materials suppliers. The company is collaborating with state and local officials to ramp up production efforts and support hiring and training.

 

Honeywell’s Phoenix Engines campus is one of the company’s largest, and since 1950 has been dedicated to the design and manufacture of propulsion engines and auxiliary power units for a variety of commercial and military aircraft. The facility will continue its aircraft technology manufacturing operations alongside the new protective gear production.

3M  Targeting 2 billion N95 Masks per year by Early 2021.

In early 2020 health officials worried there were not nearly enough of them. In early March, officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the country had only about 35 million of the 3.5 billion N95 respirators needed in the event of a full-blown pandemic. 

3M doubled global production to 1.1 billion per year from about 400 million per year, and the company said in late March it plans to double production again to 2 billion within 12 months. 

The explosion of face mask demand could provide a small boost for 3M, which reported sales of about $32 billion in 2019. The company does not break down the actual size of its face mask business, but some Wall Street analysts estimate 3M sold anywhere from $100 million to $325 million in face masks prior to the outbreak of the disease. The outbreak could add another $300 million in sales, said one analyst. 

This would be only a tiny portion of 3M’s overall business, but the importance of the product still has focused a tremendous amount of attention on the company. 

Keeping Score on Medical and N95 Mask Production

Information on mask production around the world is voluminous, confusing and inconsistent.  Here are some of the latest figures.

Keeping Score on N95 Masks – Millions Produced

The Sinopec facilities can make either medical masks or N95 masks. So it is not certain what percentage is devoted to N95 production at any one time.

Keeping Score on Medical Masks – Millions Produced

Shortage of Meltblown Fabric for Face Masks

Currently, of the 200 million masks China makes a day, only 600,000 are N95 standard masks, used by medical personnel, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, a state planning body. This is out of date as per the new Sinopec capacity as shown above. Provincial regulators have granted dozens of new licenses to open additional factories capable of producing top-grade masks, including those that meet the standards for use by health-care professionals.

But this ambitious effort has run into a bottleneck. Both the masks made for medical personnel and for consumer purchase require a once-obscure material called melt-blown fabric. It's an extremely fine mesh of synthetic polymer fibers that forms the critical inner filtration layer of a mask, allowing the wearer to breath while reducing the inflow of possible infectious particles.

"We're talking about fibers where one filament has a diameter of less than one micron, so we are in the nano area," said Markus Müller, the sales director at German company Reicofil, a major provider of melt-blown machine lines. And there's now a global shortage of melt-blown fabric due to the increased demand for masks — and the difficulty in producing this material.

Costing upward of 3.8 million euros ($4.23 million) apiece, the machine that creates this fabric melts down plastic material and blows it out in strands, like cotton candy, into flat sheets of melt-blown fabric for face masks and other filtration products. A similar line of machines can create a related kind of fabric, called spun-bond fabric, also used in face masks and in medical protection suits worn by health-care workers.

The machines are not easy to make because of the exacting precision required, says Müller: "You need to stretch these fibers by hot air, and [the air] needs to be in perfect condition over the width of the machine.

Sinopec Can Make 5 Million N95 Masks Per Day

 

In early March, Sinopec Corp, China's leading energy and chemical company, put its first meltblown nonwovens line into operation at its Yanshan factory in Beijing. The Yanshan factory is a converted 3600-square-meter old warehouse that has found new life as a global production base following the challenges brought by the coronavirus outbreak.

The 14,400-ton capacity Yanshan facility is one of Sinopec's two meltblown nonwoven fabric assembly bases and is co-managed with China National Machinery Industry Corporation. The base has two nonwoven production lines and three spunbond production lines and can produce up to four tons of meltblown fabric for 1.2 million N95 disposable masks or six tons for six disposable masks per day.

The new facility also takes advantage of Sinopec's integrated upstream supply-chain by sourcing local materials from Yanshan and support from the on-site synthetic resin production line. 

"It normally takes about half a year to complete the construction of a 10,000-ton meltblown fabric factory - We have done it in 12 days, 48 hours ahead of schedule. In a challenging time like this, saving 48 hours means that we can produce an extra 12 million disposable masks," says Lv Dapeng, spokesperson of Sinopec Corp.

The largest medical material supplier in China, Sinopec is a significant supplier of polypropylene, a key component in the production of disposable masks for medical use.

The new assembly line will ensure a stable supply of medical supplies, such as masks and clothing, can be distributed across the nation and worldwide. 

"We are privileged to support those who are protecting us from the virus. Sinopec will utilize all of our resources to ensure supplies to the frontline are guaranteed," says Dapeng. 

Sinopec's other eight meltblown nonwoven lines in Yizheng, Jiangsu are currently under construction and are expected to enter operational by mid-April. 

Due to the global spread of the virus, some countries and regions are still facing a shortage of face masks, which led Sinopec to decide to build 16 melt-blown nonwoven production lines, including 4 lines at Yanshan Petrochemical Company and 12 lines at Yizheng Chemical Fibre Company. Specifically, 2 production lines of the former went into operation on March 8 and 8 production lines are expected to be in operation by Mid-April. With all 16 melt-blown nonwoven production lines in production by May, Sinopec will help increase the output of disposal face masks by 10 billion with an annual production capacity of 10,000 tons. By then, Sinopec is expected to become the world’s largest melt-blown nonwoven manufacturer, making further contributions to the global heath.