Military personnel and first responders use a range of personal equipment including protective suits, gloves, boots, and respirators to prevent exposure of their skin and airways to hazardous chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear substances. Although each individual item of personal protective equipment is well tested against existing standards, it is also necessary to consider the performance of the interfaces between items in terms of prevention from exposure, and the protection system as a whole. This article presents an aerosol challenge method for assessing the performance of the interface between a respirator and the hood of a protective suit. The interface is formed between the sealing strip of the hood and the surface of the respirator's outer sealing area and is affected by how well the sealing strip can cover and adapt to the sealing area. The method evaluates the leakage of particles of different sizes into the hood via the interface by particle counting at sampling points around the respirator's perimeter. Three different respirators were tested together with a single hood having a tight-fitting seal. The method variation between measurements was low but increased appreciably when the protective ensemble was re-dressed between measurements. This demonstrates the difficulty of achieving a reliable and reproducible seal between respirator and hood under normal conditions. Different leakage patterns were observed for the three respirators and were linked to some specific design features, namely the respirator's sealing area at the chin and its width at cheek level. Induced leak experiments showed that to detect substantial particle leakage, channels at the hood-respirator interface must be quite large. The method outlined herein provides a straightforward way of evaluating hood-respirator interfaces and could be useful in the further development of personal protective equipment.

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Background: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic put the entire healthcare sector under severe strain due to shortages of personal protection equipment. A large number of new filtering mask models were introduced on the market, claiming effectiveness that had undergone little or no objective and reliable verifications. Methods and Materials: Filter materials were tested against sodium chloride particles according to the EN149 x7.9.2 standard for particle penetration. Particle counters were used to measure the particle penetration of the filtering mask models, resolved over sizes in the range of 27-1000 nm. Results: We report on the results for 86 different filtering mask models. The majority of the tested models showed <3% penetration, whereas almost one third (i.e., 27 of 86) of the models performed poorly. Discussion: Interestingly, the poorest performing masks showed a tendency to have worse filtering effectiveness for larger particles than for smaller sized particles, following the opposite tendency of the best filtering masks. Conclusion: Almost one third of the filtering mask models tested failed the specified pass criteria as specified in the temporary EU COVID-19 standard. This fact, and the high health risks of COVID-19, highlights the need for independent testing.