Analysis of Effectiveness of Face Masks

Abstract. One of the major and demanding research works of environmental studies is air pollution, which plays an important role in management of our environment at present. Polluted and populated urban area gets most concern. The largest sources of pollution include vehicular emission, power plant emissions, crop residue burning, meteorological conditions, garbage burning, construction and demolition projects etc. especially in cities of developing countries, inhaling polluted air causes detrimental effects on health of living beings. This article presents the study done on face masks used for reduction of exposure from polluted air, this polluted air contains SOX, COX, NOX, S.P.M (PM2.5, PM10 and PM1) and several other criteria pollutants which deposit inside the respiratory tract and lungs of living beings and cause several health issues such as asthma, shortness of breath, headache, fatigue etc., and in some cases may also lead to permanent damage to lungs. Several masks available in the market provide different filtration efficiencies so they provide protection to a limited extent against air pollutants. Some of these masks were studied and analyzed gravimetrically for their effectiveness so that the better ones can be figured out. By being aware of the efficiencies of face masks it becomes easy to select the one according to the purpose and preference of the user. The results show the effectiveness of several masks depicting their real environment behavior and protection against air pollutants. Keywords: Mask, Efficiency, air pollution, real environment, polluted