Life cycle assessment of face mask decontamination via atmospheric pressure plasma

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of face masks to prevent transmission of infection has increased. One way to reduce impacts of the production of new masks (including reduction of resource use) is to implement circular economy strategies to allow multiple (re)uses of the face masks. In the present study, the environmental impacts of single use disposable masks in hospital are compared with their potential decontamination and reuse using the low temperature plasma (LTP) decontamination process. For all the considered scenarios, it resulted that environmental impacts of single use of disposable masks are lower (for every impact category) compared with decontamination and reuse of face masks. Highest impact in the decontamination process is due to helium used for cooling the electrodes, causing more than 95% of the impacts in most of the impact categories. To decrease impacts of decontamination, two improvement scenarios were assessed: 1) helium replacement with alternative materials (as argon or nitrogen), and 2) decreased helium consumption (based on optimized helium flow, or helium recirculation). Replacing helium with alternative materials does not lead to environmental benefits, while optimising the helium consumption could make the decontaminating more environmental friendly, but only if helium consumption in the current laboratory practise would be decreased by at least 95%. This assessment takes into consideration that the decontamination is still based on laboratory scale process, and for which additional research to optimize the process from a resource and environmental point of view is needed.