Evaluation of some physical and tensile properties of commercial surgical masks

In this study, the performance characteristics of various surgical masks have been examined. Several physical properties, such as air permeability, tensile strength, and calculated surface porosity of 8 commercial 3-layer surgical masks, with all spunbonded layers and meltblown middle layer, have been determined and then compared. The production type of the nonwoven layer is effective on the air permeability values, and the values of the spunbonded masks are found higher than the masks containing a meltblown layer. The air permeability of the latter masks varies with the weight per unit area of the meltblown layer. Moreover, calculated porosities of the spunbonded masks are higher than those of the others. The influence of meltblown layers is found effective on the tensile strength values in machine direction.