Conclusions
Irradiation of two different filtering facepiece respirators with electron beam irradiation allows to determine that applied irradiation doses does not affect filtrating materials stability and integrity. SEM analysis revealed that morphology of the fibres used for the respirators production remains the same after irradiation with both doses as the morphology of control samples and any effect like crack and holes are not visible for all filtrating layers . In case of the 1863+ respirator slight degradation of the material was confirmed while completely different behaviour was observed for 9101E respirator.
Presented results confirmed that the decrease in filtration efficiency after irradiation of both respirators results from elimination of the electric charge from the PP fibers in the irradiation process. Therefore, decontamination of filtering facepiece respirators with electron beam irradiation is problematic without regard to applied doses. Nevertheless, applied doses did not influence filtering materials structure and integrity, therefore application of treated in this way masks can be considered after restoration of electric charge what is crucial for their filtering function.