In March of 2020, the
World Health Organization declared a
pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the
severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (
SARS-CoV-2). The
pandemic led to a shortage of N95-grade filtering facepiece
respirators (FFRs), especially for
protection of
healthcare professionals against airborne
transmission of
SARS-CoV-2. We and others have previously reported promising
decontamination methods that may be applied to the
recycling and reuse of FFRs. In this study we tested
disinfection of three
viruses including
SARS-CoV-2, dried on a piece of meltblown fabric, the principal component responsible for filtering of fine particles in N95-level FFRs, under a range of
temperatures (60-95{degrees}C) at ambient or 100% relative
humidity (RH) in conjunction with
filtration efficiency testing. We found that
heat treatments of 75{degrees}C for 30 min or 85{degrees}C for 20 min at 100% RH resulted in efficient
decontamination from the fabric of
SARS-CoV-2,
human coronavirus NL63 (
HCoV-NL63), and another enveloped
RNA virus,
chikungunya virus vaccine strain 181 (CHIKV-181), without lowering the meltblown fabrics
filtration efficiency.