Electric cooker can sanitize N95 masks in 50 minutes : Study

Team Udayavani, Aug 8, 2020, 6:10 PM IST

A recent study claims that 50 minutes of dry heat in an electric cooker can sanitize N95 respirators inside and out while maintaining their filtration and fit.

The study was conducted by experts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Researchers verified that one cooking cycle, which maintained a cooker’s contents at around 100°C, decontaminated the mask.

The team put a towel at the bottom of the cooker to prevent the masks from touching the heating plate.They claim that it helped in getting rid of four different classes of virus, including Covid-19 virus.

The researchers claimed that dry heat might be a method to meet all three criteria, decontamination, filtration and fit without requiring special preparation or leaving any chemical residue.