Individual Respiratory Protection Equipment: Innovations to Reduce the Risk of Occupational Diseases

Abstract

Individual respiratory protective equipment (PPE) is the last barrier to protect workers when performing production tasks in harmful and dangerous working conditions. The article analyzes modern innovative designs of personal respiratory protective equipment, which increase the level of protection of users during their operation. The method of morphological analysis is applied. This method based on the selection of possible solutions for assessing the manufacturability of PPE models (if there is a system of criteria) and making a rational decision regarding the features of their application in production conditions. As a result, it was established that in order to ensure the appropriate duration of the protective action of gas and dust filters and to avoid both poisoning of workers due to the ingress of harmful aerosols into the sub-mask space of the filter respirator, and excessive physical exhaustion due to the increase in pressure drop above the standard substances, it is recommended to equip the filters with special indicators for determining air pollution and pressure drop values. It was determined that in order to increase the reliability of the protection of workers, it is necessary to equip filter respirators with the functions of operational control of breathing resistance, place a headrest to control the occurrence of possible gaps behind the obturation band when performing various production operations, and establish the real term of the protective effect of the filters. The practical value of the work is innovative solutions to improve the designs of existing filter respirators, which will allow control over technological parameters during operation. In particular, the density along the obturation strip and the magnitude of the tension force of the respirator headgear. Recommendations are also given for controlling the term of the protective action of gas filters, since determining the specified indicators based on the organoleptic abilities of the user is dangerous for health. Keywords: risk, means of individual protection of respiratory organs, filtering respirator.