摘要或動機

The surgical mask has been our daily companion since the outbreak of the Corona pandemic. The nonwovens (outer layers, not the filter membrane) from which the surgical mask is constructed consist of very long and thin polypropylene fibers. This leads to the question of whether microplastics are released during breathing through the surgical mask, which could enter the respiratory tract or the lungs. This would have a negative impact on our health, depending on the size of the detached fiber fragments - the smaller the worse because they can enter much deeper in our respiratory tract. In order to investigate the question of whether fiber fragments are released during breathing through a surgical mask, a filtration device was built. The filters were examined under an optical microscope after filtration. If fiber fragments would detach from the surgical mask, they would be found on the filter. Different surgical masks were tested, those that were not worn at all to surgical masks that were worn all day. It was found that fiber fragments were coming off the surgical masks. There were different fiber fragment types. Some fiber fragments were still undamaged (exhibited nice fractures), while others were frayed. Clump-like fragments occurred, but also smaller fine fiber fragments. All these different fiber fragments had a certain size, so that they could be called microplastics. The remarkable result of the whole study is that there is a direct correlation between the wearing time of the surgical mask and the number of detaching fiber fragments. In the case of the unworn surgical masks, 10 times fewer fiber fragments occurred during filtration than in the case of the surgical masks that were worn all day.