Due to the high request of Filtering Facepiece Respirators (FFRs) related to the COVID19 outbreak, health workers are actually assessing the possibility of re-sterilizing protection masks that were already used, often without any scientific rationale. If not verified methods are implemented to this purpose, FFR users as well as people interacting with them are exposed to the same risk that they would face if no FFR would be worn.

With this project we propose a time-effective and easy to use sterilizing tool exploiting low temperature heat treatment (< 100 °C) for the decontamination of FFRs without causing damage to them (i.e. the shape and wearability of the device are not modified). The basic principle of the technique is a 30 minutes warm moist heat treatment (65°C), able to effectively decontaminate the mask without altering the functionality of the filter or compromising its wearability.