Filters and HVAC Webinar Slated for September 10

Some Meat Processors Installing HEPA Filters and UV

Are Cloth Masks Aerosol Generators?

Oerlikon Supplying Meltblown Systems in Many Countries Including Australia

Kuraray will Produce Meltblowns for 300 Million Masks per Year

Large-scale Disinfection Using Ultraviolet (UV) Technology from LED (light-emitting diode

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Filters and HVAC Webinar Slated for September 10

The next Filters and HVAC Webinar is scheduled for 10:00 AM CDT September 10, 2020.  To register click here: http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/component/rsform/form/87-masks-and-other-ppe-registration

This webinar will continue the analysis created in previous webinars.

This webinar will be a high level discussion and debate relative to the issues affecting filter or treatment type, efficiency, air quantity, and direction. It will expand on the previous webinars and interviews which you can see at http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/2-uncategorised/1574-coronavirus-webinars#Filters . It will also reference the articles in the Alerts.  Even if you are not a subscriber you can see the titles Search All Alerts by Keyword. 

Here are issues which will be discussed along with any others volunteered by participants.

 

Some Meat Processors Installing HEPA Filters and UV

Two of the world's largest meatpackers have installed ultraviolet air cleaning equipment in some of their U.S. processing plants. The decision comes as pressure increases on food companies to protect workers from growing concerns about airborne transmission of COVID-19.

Tyson Foods Inc. said they are doing extensive research on air flow in their facilities to better understand how it might benefit team members during the pandemic.

“We’re also testing numerous new technologies to include ultraviolet air treatment systems across several of our plants,” the company said in a statement.

JBS USA, owned by Brazil's JBS SA and one of the four major U.S. beef processors, told Reuters that it installed "ultraviolet germicidal air sanitation" equipment in plant ventilation and air purification systems that use a specific frequency range of light waves to kill germs.

These decisions to test UV air treatment systems underline the mounting pressure to protect workers in the U.S. meat industry, Reuters reported, which has seen more than 16,000 plant employees in 23 states infected with COVID-19 and 86 worker deaths related to the respiratory disease.

Low temperatures generally allow viruses to survive in the air longer. This, combined with close working conditions, add challenges for meat processors.

In Germany, a COVID-19 outbreak forced meatpacking plants to review infection risks posed by their cooling systems, Reuters reported. One meatpacker installed high-efficiency HEPA filters.

JBS installed "plasma air cleaning technology" in U.S. plants that utilizes bipolar ionization to neutralize particulates in the air, including virus cells and bacteria, Reuters reported. At this time, the company is still collecting data on how well the air treatment system works.

Some companies have chosen not to change their ventilation system because they have not seen scientific data to show the virus is spread through industrial air systems, Reuters reported.

Are Cloth Masks Aerosol Generators?

The advice to use a mask to fight COVID is like saying use a knife for surgery. Who cares whether it is a butcher knife of a high quality scalpel? In both cases life hangs in the balance of the product choice.

Most everyone now agrees that a mask is a major weapon in the COVID battle. It is therefore imperative that we use the right product. It can be argued that efficient masks will save seven times as many lives as inefficient masks. This important theory will be reviewed continually in the Coronavirus Technology Solutions daily alerts and will be one of the subjects discussed in our August 20 webinar.

There is now a mountain of evidence that a significant quantity of the COVID-19 virus travels through the air in small aerosols. A cloth mask will allow most of these particles to pass through.  An N95 Mask will capture 95% or more of them. One commonly stated estimate is that coughs and sneezing are responsible for 60% of the transmission, contact 20% and aerosols 20%.

The main benefit of a cloth mask is that it will theoretically prevent the 60% transmitted by coughing or sneezing larger droplets. What if this is not true and instead the cloth mask acts as an efficient aerosol generator converting large droplets on the mask interior into small droplets discharged into the atmosphere?

There are many studies documenting how a large droplet evaporates and creates small droplets.  However, a droplet on the interior of a mask is ideally situated to be converted to aerosols by the passing of air around or through it. One of the air pollution control scrubber designs uses a screen. Droplets containing surfactants are sprayed on the back of the screen. Dirty air then moves through the screen forming small bubbles. Could this be what happens to cough and sneeze droplets?

Investigators with the Ulsan College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea. published a  research letter, in the Annals of Internal Medicine, analyzing the virus emission during coughing while wearing a surgical or cloth mask.  The paper was later retracted due to questions about the mathematics but some of the findings are important in answering the question as to whether a cloth mask can be an aerosol generator.

The research letter states. “All swabs from the outer mask surfaces of the masks were positive for SARS–CoV-2, whereas most swabs from the inner mask surfaces were negative.”

The research letter investigators found greater contamination on the outer surface of the face masks than on the inner surfaces. 

“Although it is possible that virus particles may cross from the inner to the outer surface because of the physical pressure of swabbing, we swabbed the outer surface before the inner surface,” the research letter states. “The consistent finding of virus on the outer mask surface is unlikely to have been caused by experimental error or artifact.”

If some virus moves from the inner to outer surface it stands to reason that some quantity traveled from the inner surface into the ambient air. There is no doubt that water vapor from the droplet moves through the mask. Why wouldn’t the virus move through along with it?

There are many experts  better qualified to answer these questions than is the McIlvaine Company. But there is enough evidence of aerosol generation from cloth masks that answers are necessary.

If cloth masks are aerosol generators they are relatively ineffective in fighting COVID. They allow 80% of the virus to be transmitted where N95 allows 12%.

 

Percent of Total Virus Transmitted with Various Mask Types
Mask Type	Coughing/Sneezing	Contact	Airborne	Total
None	60	20	20	100
N95	1	10	1	12
Cloth	10	20	50	80

 

The assumption Is that both transmitter and recipient are wearing the same mask type. So in the case of the N95 mask there would be less escaping virus to contaminate surfaces. This should result in a 50% decrease in contact transmission. The difference in numbers of infections would be reduced seven fold as compared to cloth masks. The number of deaths reduced could even be greater. Evidence indicates that aerosols  penetrate the lungs and cause more serious damage than do viruses in the nasal passages.

We expect a lively debate on this subject during our August 20 webinar.  We invite anyone to send opinions or evidence in advance and to participate in the webinar.  Details are found at

http://home.mcilvainecompany.com/index.php/2-uncategorised/1574-coronavirus-webinars#Masks

Bob McIlvaine can answer your questions at 847 226 2391 rmcilvaine@mcilvainecompany.com

 

Oerlikon Supplying Meltblown Systems in Many Countries Including Australia

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, worldwide demand for protective masks and apparel has resulted in a record number of new multi million Euros orders at the Oerlikon Nonwoven business unit of the Swiss Oerlikon Group.

From its manufacturing site in Neumünster, Germany, the high-tech meltblown systems with their patented ecuTEC+ nonwovens electro-charging technology, are being exported all over the world, and for the very first time, a contract has now been signed with a business in Australia.

 

Rainer Straub explained: “When, at the beginning of the pandemic in February, demand for protective face masks increased rapidly, we at Oerlikon Nonwoven responded immediately. We ramped up all the available production capacities here in Neumünster in order to quickly manufacture nonwovens for producing face masks using our laboratory systems. As a result, we have been able to make a small, regional contribution to covering demand. In parallel, we have pulled out all the stops in order to systematically further expand our skills as machine and system builders so as to cater to the initially expected, and now also continuing, global demand for meltblown systems as quickly as possible.”

Oerlikon Nonwoven says its meltblown technology, with which nonwovens for protective masks can also be manufactured, is recognized by the market as being the technically most efficient method for producing highly separating filter media made from plastic fibres. The company adds that capacities for respiratory masks available in Europe to date are predominantly manufactured on Oerlikon Nonwoven systems.

“Ever more manufacturers in the most diverse countries are hoping to become independent of imports. Therefore, what we are experiencing in Germany is also happening in both industrialized and emerging countries throughout the world,” commented Rainer Straub.

In addition to China, Turkey, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Austria and numerous countries in both North and South America, Australia and not the least Germany, will for the first time be among the countries to which Oerlikon Nonwoven will be delivering machines and equipment before the end of 2021.

Kuraray will Produce Meltblowns for 300 Million Masks per Year

Kuraray Co. (Tokyo) plans to modify the production lineup of its meltblown nonwoven-fabric production facility, which is located on the premises of the Okayama Factory, a facility run by nonwoven fabric production and sales subsidiary Kuraray Kuraflex Co., Ltd. that is currently undergoing expansion. This move will result in the production of face mask filters at said facility and is aimed at meeting surging demand for nonwoven fabrics for use as mask filters. The expansion will augment production by 900 tons per year; total meltblown nonwoven fabric production will subsequently be 2,700 tons per year. The augmented production is expected to be available by the end of November 2020.

The Kuraray Group’s meltblown nonwoven fabrics are currently being used as a filter material in various applications, including face masks, thanks to their fine structure consisting solely of extremely thin polymer fibers that are firmly intertwined without the use of binders.

Currently, there is a lingering shortage of face mask filters due to a rapid increase in domestic demand amid the widespread implementation of novel coronavirus countermeasures. In particular, high-performance filters for use in surgical masks have been seriously depleted.

Although the Kuraray Group has been marketing its meltblown nonwoven fabrics for a variety of applications, such as face masks, filtering materials for food and beverage production and air filters, the Group’s existing facilities for producing mask filters have been in constant full-capacity operation due to tight demand-supply status reflecting the recent spread of the novel coronavirus.

Against this backdrop, the Group decided to modify the production item lineup of this meltblown nonwoven fabric production facility currently undergoing expansion to enable to produce face mask filters. This move is expected to empower the Group to produce enough sheets of meltblown nonwoven fabric for approximately 300 million face masks per year. In this way, the Kuraray Group will contribute to nationwide efforts aimed at preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Large-scale Disinfection Using Ultraviolet (UV) Technology from LED (light-emitting diode

Ultraviolet lights for decontamination in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic is a rising field in air and surface purification. Large-scale disinfection using ultraviolet (UV) technology from LED (light-emitting diode) is not widely available, a challenge researchers at UC Santa Barbara’s Solid State Lighting & Energy Electronics Center (SSLEEC) are stepping up to address.

The initial development of ultraviolet LED lights at UC Santa Barbara began almost 15 years ago under the supervision of Professor Shuji Nakamura, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014 for his invention of blue-spectrum LED, along with a dozen other awards, medals, and honorary degrees worldwide. The UC Santa Barbara SSLEEC team is focused on developing the smaller individual LED lights, which are about the size of the flash on a cell phone, to eventually generate high-power systems.

Professor Steven DenBaars, commenting on the development of the technology, stated, “Four months ago when COVID broke out, we realized we could make the UV LEDs both by changing the wavelength and power to disinfect personal protective equipment, and hopefully one day, they will be used to sanitize air and surfaces.”

Christian Zollner, a doctoral student and researcher, elaborated on this, explaining, “The benefits of LEDs are mostly that they are small, light, and low power. So far, what they can do in terms of COVID is limited, because right now they are mostly used in portable applications and residential consumer applications. Whereas in the future, we would like to improve the power and the efficiency of the LEDs to create high-power applications such as being able to disinfect an entire building.”

Although UV LED disinfection technology is not yet ideal for large-scale applications, the process is compatible with smaller-scale environments. The UC Santa Barbara team realized the technology is powerful enough to be implemented for future use in home air-conditioning and handling systems to supplement traditional HEPA filters.

Ultraviolet light disinfection technology is already used in hospitals. However, the technology generally uses mercury lamps, which pose potential mercury contamination risks coupled with the general harm of UV light exposure.

In using LED lights, the environmental risks are decreased while also increasing the potential uses for the technology as LEDs are energy efficient and portable. DenBaars explained, “Now you can make the decontamination localized and you can apply it differently. For instance, you can make a UV sanitizer that can sterilize a cell phone in a little box you close.”

Despite mitigating the risk of mercury contamination, UV light poses safety risks with direct eye and skin exposure. “The main concern is that you don’t want to look directly in these lights or have direct skin exposure,” DenBaars explained. “So, generally, when they do UV disinfection in hospitals, everybody has to leave the room.”

Disinfection technology using ultraviolet light requires UVC light. “UVC light directly reacts with the DNA molecule itself,” Zollner said, explaining how the disinfection process worked. “When a UV photon collides with a DNA molecule, it can break down the chemical bonds in that DNA molecule. This means, if you break enough of these bonds in DNA molecules, you essentially mutate the DNA to the point it is unable to repair itself and the cell cannot replicate. This process is what inactivates pathogens.” That’s the good news. The bad news was: “At the same time, because it attacks the cell at the molecular level, it doesn’t discriminate. It will kill anything with DNA or RNA in it which is why it is harmful to skin and eyes.”

Researchers of the disinfection technology must first perfect the power levels of these portable disinfection lights and find a means of addressing the risk of UV light exposure so that the technology can be applied at the desired scale. 

DenBaars commented on the technology’s potential, stating, “If we could get it working for airplanes and closed spaces like cars, they could be used to create air purifiers where there are closed spaces. It could also be applied to cruise ships where we saw a lot of contamination. If we can work quickly to figure out the power and wavelengths to purify air that would have a huge impact on the spread of this virus because it is easily airborne.”