N95 Mask Sterilization Technology Begins Use Across Country

$415 million worth of the new technology used for N95 mask sterilization has begun to be delivered to hospitals across the country.

Currently, “six units have already been delivered to locations including two to New York, and one each to Columbus, Ohio, Boston, Chicago and Tacoma”.

Each unit “can decontaminate up to 80,000 used N95 respirators per system per day, enabling mask reuse up to 20 times.” The $415 million will cover 60 units, which “will allow 4.8 million masks to be sterilized per day, almost 34 million per week.”

Ohio-based Battelle says their system “is designed to work on N95 respirators for the removal of the novel coronavirus”, and uses “concentrated, vapor phase hydrogen peroxide…[to] decontaminate the same respirator multiple times without degrading N95 respirator performance.”