How Safety Masks Protect Us? Their Types, and Benefits
In Industrial settings, there are a lot of harmful air borne particles that a person can inhale while working without a safety masks or respirator. Many people have learned their lessons over time by inhaling harmful substances like fumes, gases, dust, and various other airborne particles, developing serious respiratory issues. Moreover, you will have to learn that not every other normal mask has the ability to protect you. There are specific industrial standards based on which these masks are manufactured with multiple layers of filters to work efficiently. This article explains in detail how safety masks protect us, their types, benefits, and ultimately, so you can make the right decision and choose the best one for yourself.
What is a Safety Mask?
A safety mask or respirator is a personal protection equipment (PPE) that works as a barrier to protect the wearer from inhaling dangerous substances like infectious germs, dust, airborne pathogens, etc. These masks are also worn in various industrial spaces with a risk of inhaling harmful particles and gases. Even the droplets in the air are filtered by the masks, which have multiple layers of filters, eliminating the risk of inhaling germs.
How Safety Masks Protect Us?
Safety masks have a great filtration mechanism that works as a barrier to protect against hazardous substances, pollution, and gases by filtering out inhaled air with specially installed filters.
Industrial safety masks are also called respirators and are designed to safeguard workers from anything hazardous present in the air, including gases, water droplets, chemical fumes, vapors, dust, etc. These masks have special filters through which they filter inhaled air keeping the workers safe while executing highly essential industrial applications.
Now, there are different types of safety masks with different air filtration mechanisms. For example, the N95 mask has multiple layers of nonwoven polypropylene fabric filters that help it work with 96% efficiency. Whereas, the Powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) use fan filters to draw in polluted air and filter it before it reaches the wearer’s lungs.
Different Types of Safety Masks or Respirators For Higher Protection
Various types of safety masks are used in different industries depending on the level of filtration they provide. For instance, there are filtering facepieces, like N95s, half-face respirators, full-face respirators, and powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs), each one designed to protect your lungs but with varying efficiency. Let’s discuss in detail to know more about them:
Here are the types of safety masks that are used across various fields:
Filtering Facepiece Respirators (FFRs)
These types of safety masks are designed to cover your nostrils and mouth filtering polluted and contaminated air before you inhale the air.
Common types of FFR safety masks:
N95 Respirators: These are the most popular masks used by a large number of the population for protection against pollution, infectious diseases, and more. N95 masks offer the highest level of protection with 95% efficiency to filter out airborne particles.
KN95 Masks: These masks are designed with Chinese standards and provide the same level of protection as N95 masks with 95% efficiency. Both N95 and K95 are developed to be used in settings like airports, construction sites, in streets, restaurants, and so on.
FFP2 Masks: Designed with European Standards in mind, these types of safety masks help filter out 94% of the airborne particles and are equivalent to N95 masks. You can wear FFP2 to protect yourself against dust, pollution, chemical fumes, gas, or any other airborne contaminant.
P100 Respirators: These masks are more efficient than an N95 mask with 99.97% efficiency in filtering out airborne particles. P100 Respirators are more advanced than N95 masks and can even be worn in industrial settings. Moreover, they are resistant to oil.
Reusable Respirators
As name hints, reusable respirators or masks are personal protective equipment or PPE that are designed to be reused. They have replaceable filters and cartridges so that consumers don’t have to buy a new one after a few uses. Unlike other respirators, these are highly cost effective because of their reusability, versatile to be worn in any type of environment, and are designed with comfort in mind.
Common types of Reusable Respirators:
Half-Face Respirators: These types of reusable respirators cover your mouth and nose for filtering out the air you breathe in. They offer high efficiency in filtering particles and are very reliable in case you work in or travel to areas with contaminated air.
Full-Face Respirators: Covering your whole face including nose, mouth and eyes, these types of reusable masks are one of the great choices for ensuring your protection against pollution and various types of contaminants. Furthermore, with these masks on, you aren't required to wear safety glasses.
Elastomeric Full Facepiece Respirators: These masks also cover your entire face to offer higher protection against pollution and various airborne contaminants. Their main benefits include reusability, excellent sealing, durability, and comfort.
Powered Air-Purifying Respirators (PAPRs)
PAPR safety mask is a next-level personal protective equipment (PPE) with a battery-powered air filtration system that uses a powerful fan to offer high-quality filtered air to breathe into the wearer through its helmet. These masks filter out vapors, airborne particles, gasses, chemical fumes, etc. These types of safety masks are used in settings like chemical factories, pharma, healthcare facilities, military, first responders, welding work, etc. Apart from good air quality, the PAPRs are designed to offer easy breathing and great comfort to the wearer.
How do PAPR safety masks work?
PAPRs have a powerful blower that draws in air through the filters that deliver cleaned high quality air to the wearer through its helmet or facepiece. They consistently provide a positive pressure inside the helmet and prevent contaminated air from entering.
Types of Safety Masks or Respirators For Industrial Settings of Higher Concentration of Contaminants
Filtering Face Respirators
In industrial spaces, the filtering face respirators are most extensively used for protection against dangerous substances in air like vapor, gases, chemical fumes, etc. These masks are available with and without exhalation valves and cover the entire face for higher protection. Both of their filters that cover the mouth and nose are easily replaceable.
Supplied air respirators (SARs)
These types of safety masks or respirators are used in spaces with lack of oxygen and where the concentration of contaminants is higher for the regular filtration masks to handle. These masks consist of a headpiece with a tight fitting visor that is connected to the respirators with an air filtration system.
Key Benefits of Using Safety Masks or Respirators
Prevents Inhaling Particles
Safety masks prevent the wearers from inhaling dust, fumes, vapors, and other types of contaminants with their filters, and protects from respiratory problems.
Controls Chemical Exposure
Special respirators with strong air filtration systems are used by the wearers working in industrial facilities to prevent them from inhaling harmful chemicals or gases present in the air.
Protection Against Infectious Diseases
Well, the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a lot about the level of protection masks like N95 mask, K95, FFP2, and P100 provide. These masks help prevent airborne infectious diseases from entering our respiratory systems with 95% to 99.7% efficiency.
Reduced Respiratory Issues
If not like that, masks can only be worn during pandemics or while working in industrial spaces, in fact, any person can wear them for their personal protection when they are outside the home. Masks consistently filter out harmful substances and increase your chances of evading respiratory problems such as asthma, bronchitis, etc.
Protect Workers in the Long Run
There is a large group of the population that daily works in settings where the concentration of dust particles, pollution, fumes, or gases is higher in the air. For instance, construction workers, employees of chemical factories, professionals of pharma companies, etc. They have higher chances of developing respiratory issues, thus safety masks provided by the companies are a great form of protection for them against airborne particles.
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