Pyrolysis of all layers of surgical mask waste as a mixture and its life-cycle assessment

The origin of the novel human coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and its potential for harm increased face mask and medical waste in the environment, thereby necessitating the urgent prevention and control of the pandemic. The article estimates the face mask and medical waste generation in Asia during the pandemic to convince the waste management and scientific communities to find ways to address the negative impact that the waste disposal has on the environment. Standardisation, procedures, guidelines and strict implementation of medical waste management related to COVID-19, community habitats and public areas should be carefully considered to reduce pandemic risks in hospitals, as proper medical waste disposal effectively controls infection sources.

The masks have always been mentioned as an effective tool against environmental threats. They are considered as protective equipment to preserve the respiratory system against the non-desirable air droplets and aerosols such as the viral or pollution particles. The aerosols can be pollution existence in the air, or the infectious airborne viruses initiated from the sneezing, coughing of the infected people. The filtration efficiency of the different masks against these aerosols are not the same, as the particles have different sizes, shapes, and properties. Therefore, the challenge is to fabricate the filtration masks with higher efficiency to decrease the penetration percentage at the nastiest conditions. To achieve this concept, knowledge about the mechanisms of the penetration of the aerosols through the masks at different effective environmental conditions is necessary. In this paper, the literature about the different kinds of face masks and respiratory masks, common cases of their application, and the advantages and disadvantages of them in this regard have been reviewed. Moreover, the related mechanisms of the penetration of the aerosols through the masks are discussed. The environmental conditions affecting the penetration as well as the quality of the fabrication are studied. Finally, special attention was given to the numerical simulation related to the different existing mechanisms.