Detailed explanation of the production process of disposable medical masks

2021 03/22

In this new coronavirus epidemic prevention station, masks can be said to be the most in short supply at present. All major physical stores and e-commerce platforms are in a state of difficulty. Many people are anxious about not being able to buy masks. With the end of the resumption order, major companies will usher in a wave of work, and masks are even harder to find. What is gratifying is that many companies have changed their production lines to join the ranks of producing masks. At present, Sinopec, Baojun Automobile, Foxconn, Daddy Baby, etc. have joined. Why can relevant companies change their production lines to make masks? Before answering this question, we might as well understand the materials and production process used in disposable medical masks.

Disposable medical mask structure and materials

General medical masks are composed of 3 layers, the inner and outer layers are spunbonded non-woven fabrics, and a layer of meltblown non-woven fabric is sandwiched in between. The outer layer of non-woven fabric can prevent droplets, the inner layer of non-woven fabric can absorb moisture, and the middle layer is a filter layer, which can achieve 99.99% filtering and antibacterial effects. A part of the larger particles can be filtered out by the filter material mechanical sieve, just like we use a sieve to sieve things, filter out large materials. When a part of it passes through the mesh channel of the filter material, the particles hit the fiber and are absorbed by the action of molecular gravity. In addition, some small-scale and low-speed particles are adsorbed by fibers during Brownian diffusion motion. In addition, the electrostatic effect of the fiber will also attract particles. This is why medical masks have better anti-bacterial effects than ordinary masks we usually wear. Back to the structure, we can find that the main material of medical masks is non-woven fabric.
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So what is non-woven fabric?

The so-called non-woven fabric does not require warp and weft threads to be interwoven together, but is bonded together by physical methods. It is a non-woven fabric formed by airflow or mechanical web formation, after spunlacing, needle punching or hot rolling reinforcement. Simply put, it is like directly letting the cotton structure disorderly tangled together to form a flat fabric. As shown in the picture below, our common handbags are made of non-woven materials. Spunbond non-woven fabrics and melt-blown non-woven fabrics are a kind of non-woven fabrics, which are formed through different processing techniques. The main materials of spunbond non-woven fabrics are polyester and polypropylene, which are fabrics formed by the spunbond method. The main raw material of melt blown cloth is polypropylene, which is formed by melt blown method. Melt blown cloth has good filtering and shielding properties.