Do you choose the right daily protective mask for haze protection?

Air composition contains nitrogen, oxygen, noble gas, carbon dioxide, and other gases and impurities. When we talk about air pollution, it refers to the over existed of polluted gases and impurities. The air quality is judged based on the concentration of pollutant in the air. Man-made pollutant is the main source for pollution, including vehicles, ships, aircraft exhaust, industrial pollution, residents and heating burned, melting garbage pollution, etc.

When the pollution problems become more and more serious, AQI (air quality index), the dimensionless index for description of air quality condition quantitatively, becomes more important for our daily life. We will check the AQI every morning, when it is high and we will have to use protective mask to prevent inhaling more PM2.5 pollutant.

PM2.5 (2.5 diameter particulate matter) is tiny, but it carries a lot of poisonous and harmful substances. It will bring a subtle impact on health after entering the human body through breathing. The world health organization (WTO) released the air quality guidelines (2006) pointed out that daily average concentration of particulate increased every 10μg/m3, the mortality should increase about 0.5%. The most horrible thing is that when the PM2.5 is adsorbed in your alveoli, it is hard to fall and the adsorption is not reversible.

For Chinese people, they are facing the threat from particulate matter. The protective mask which can prevent inhaling such pollutant is very important for daily protection. But there are so many kinds of masks in the market. Some are made of knitted fabric, woven fabric and some are made of non-woven materials. And there is cup type, three-dimensional cutting type, folding type, plane type, etc. Which one is better or which one is effective for PM2.5 protection?

N95 respirators are the certified products by NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) for particulate filtering about aerosols (including emerging hazards such as airborne infectious organisms and engineered nanoparticles).

CEN (European committee for standardization) divides the filtering masks into two types, oil type and salt type. The protective levels are P1, P2 and P3. P3 is the best for protection performance and P1 is the bottommost.

For the brand new GB/T 32610-2016 which begins to implement in November 1st 2016 requires the technical specifications of oil and salt filtering efficiency, the particle protective performance for daily protective masks. It will standard the market and the product quality, but it will also bring a lot of changes for the overseas mask and respirator manufacturers.

The brand new Chinese standard GB/T 32610-2016 is for standardization of the market and product quality for daily protective masks. It is the market requirements that promote the related organization to create such standards. 

Before GB/T 32610-2016 Technical specification of daily protective mask, there are GB 2626 General technical requirements for self-inhalation filter type dust respirator, GB 19038 Technical requirements for protective face mask for medical use and YY 0469 Technical requirements for surgical mask. But these standards are all for job safety or medical use. None of them is for ordinary people of daily life. 

There is serious fog and haze problem in China. For ordinary people, the useful protective mask will prevent the danger from haze and save their lives. Everybody in China cares so much about the physical health and the danger of haze, that’s why clean canned air sales so well in Chinese market.  The new standard standardizes the scope, definition, grading, test methods, package and storage requirements for the daily protective masks. It will improve the market of daily respirator which don’t have standard before and provide ordinary people a reliable and useful specifications to choose and buy. 

GB/T 32610 has four different levels: D, C, B and A. These levels are for different AQI. Level A mask is for the condition that PM2.5 is below 500μg/m3, Level B mask is for the condition that PM2.5 is below 350μg/m3, Level C mask is for PM2.5 below 250μg/m3 and Level D mask is for PM2.5 below 150μg/m3 condition. 

The standard also requires about filter efficiency (Following us with the new products for PM2.5 respirator filtering tester) and particle protective performance, respiratory resistance, formaldehyde, PH value, colorfastness, breaking strength and other properties. The standard gives full consideration to the protective performance and safety, even the use of comfort. 

Personal daily protective mask is a big market in China, and it grows very fast along with the increasing of haze problems. Many mask manufacturers have already busy working for developing and testing the new masks which will accord with the requirements of standard. And many brands whose products are accorded with the requirements begin to cooperate with shopping website to prompt the products and are ready for the sales high tide annually in winter. 

This year, everyone who cares about the haze and has doubts about choosing masks will be happy. Choosing a right and useful mask becomes easier than before. We just need to check it is according with the standard and passing the tests or not, and then we can buy dozens of four levels masks in order to wear in different day of different AQI.