The widespread COVID-19 pandemic led to a shortage in the supply of N95 respirators in the United States until May 2021. In this study, we address the energy, environmental, and economic benefits of the decontamination-and-reuse of the N95 masks. Two popular decontamination methods, including dry heat and vapor hydrogen peroxide (VHP), are investigated in this study for their effective pathogen inactivation and favorable performance in preserving filtration efficiency and structural integrity of respirators. Two multiple reuse cases, under which the N95 masks are disinfected and used five times with the dry heat method and 20 times using the VHP method, are considered and compared with a single-use case. Compared to the single-use case, the dry heat-based multiple-use case reduces carbon footprint by 50% and cumulative energy demand (CED) by 17%, while the VHP-based case decreases carbon footprint by 67% and CED by 58%. The dry-heat-based and VHP-based multiple reuse cases also present environmental benefits in most of the other impact categories, primarily due to substituting new N95 respirators with decontaminated ones. Decontaminating and reusing respirators costs 77% and 89% less than the case of single-use and disposal. The sensitivity analysis results show that the geographical variation in the power grid and the times of respirator use are the most influential factors for carbon footprint and CED, respectively. The result also reaffirms the energy, environmental, and economic favorability of the decontamination and reuse of N95 respirators.

大范围的 COVID-19 大流行导致美国 N95 口罩供应短缺，直至 2021 年 5 月。在这项研究中，我们探讨了 N95 口罩净化和再利用的能源、环境和经济效益。本研究研究了两种流行的净化方法，包括干热和蒸气过氧化氢 (VHP)，其可有效灭活病原体，并在保持呼吸器过滤效率和结构完整性方面具有良好的性能。考虑两种多次重复使用案例，其中N95口罩采用干热法消毒并使用5次，采用VHP法消毒并使用20次，并与一次性使用案例进行比较。与单用途案例相比，基于干热的多用途案例可减少 50% 的碳足迹和 17% 的累积能源需求 (CED)，而基于 VHP 的案例可减少 67% 的碳足迹和 58% 的累积能源需求 (CED) %。基于干热和基于 VHP 的多次重复使用案例在大多数其他影响类别中也呈现出环境效益，这主要是由于用净化后的 N95 呼吸器替代了新的 N95 呼吸器。净化和重复使用呼吸器的成本比一次性使用和处置的成本低 77% 和 89%。敏感性分析结果表明，电网的地理变化和呼吸器的使用次数分别是碳足迹和CED的最大影响因素。结果还重申了 N95 口罩净化和再利用在能源、环境和经济方面的有利性。