Nanofiber-Based Odor-Free Medical Mask Fabrication Using Polyvinyl Butyral and Eucalyptus Anti Odor Agent

Following the 2020 COVID-19 worldwide outbreak, many countries adopted sanitary and safety measures to safeguard public health such as wearing medical face mask. While face masks became a necessity for people, disadvantages impede their long period wearing such as uncomfortable breathability and odo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Polymers 2022-10, Vol.14 (20), p.4447
Main Authors:	Benas, Jean-Sebastien, Huang, Ching-Ya, Yan, Zhen-Li, Liang, Fang-Cheng, Li, Po-Yu, Lee, Chen-Hung, Yu, Yang-Yen, Chen, Chin-Wen, Kuo, Chi-Ching
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Adsorption Aerosols Antimicrobial agents Coronaviruses COVID-19 Design Differential pressure Efficiency electrospinning essential oil Essential oils Eucalyptus Filtration Fourier transforms Humidity Masks medical mask Nanofibers Nonwoven fabrics Oils & fats Permeability Polyethylene glycol Polyethylene terephthalate Polyvinyl acetal resins Polyvinyl alcohol Polyvinyl butyral Public health safety Safety measures Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 Textiles Thickness
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Summary:	Following the 2020 COVID-19 worldwide outbreak, many countries adopted sanitary and safety measures to safeguard public health such as wearing medical face mask. While face masks became a necessity for people, disadvantages impede their long period wearing such as uncomfortable breathability and odor. The intermediate layer of the medical face mask is composed of porous non-woven fabric to block external particles while maintaining breathability. To overcome aforementioned limitation, this study uses electrospinning to design and fabricate odorless face masks via the use of aromatic oil. Eucalyptus essential oil is encapsulated through mixing and layer-by-layer by hydrophobic polyvinyl butyral and further used to fabricate the medical mask intermediate layer. We found that adding 0.2 g of eucalyptus into polyvinyl butyral fabric through mixing results in the deodorization rate of 80% after 2 h, with fabric thickness of 440.9 μm, and melt-blown non-woven fabric thickness of 981.7 μm. The Particle Filtration Efficiency of 98.3%, Bacterial Filtration Efficiency above 99.9%, and the differential pressure of 4.7 mm H2O/cm2 meet the CNS 14774 standard on medical face masks. Therefore, this study successfully proved that this type of masks’ middle layer not only effectively protects against coronavirus, but also provides better scents and makes it more comfortable for consumers.
ISSN:	2073-4360 2073-4360