What Are The Three Types of Respirators?

February 4, 2022 | POSTED IN: All Products 3M Products

What Are The Three Types of Respirators?

Everything About Respirators

The purpose of this article is to highlight the possible alternative types of respirators for use in healthcare workplaces to help protect workers from infectious airborne biological particles, such as viruses and bacteria.

When respiratory protection is recommended to help reduce exposure to biological hazards, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and the World Health Organization (WHO) often recommend respirators at least as protective as an N95, FFP2, or similar particulate respirator. All filtering facepiece respirators that are certified as N95, FFP2, KN95, or similar can, when properly selected and worn, effectively filter airborne biological particles such as viruses and bacteria.2-5 Surgical filtering facepiece respirators are also cleared as surgical masks by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Union Notified Bodies, or an equivalent authority in other countries.

Healthcare facilities often standardize on approved surgical filtering facepiece particulate respirators, sometimes also referred to as surgical N95s, healthcare respirators or medical respirators, for workers providing patient care. However, during disease outbreaks, or public health disasters, availability of approved surgical filtering facepiece respirators may become limited and organizations should evaluate whether other, more readily available, respirators would be appropriate for use. In many situations, it can be appropriate for healthcare workers to use respirators other than surgical or standard filtering facepiece respirators. The CDC indicates that healthcare facilities should consider and use alternatives to N95 respirators where feasible and appropriate. These include other classes of filtering facepiece respirators, elastomeric half-facepiece and full facepiece air purifying respirators and powered air purifying respirators (PAPRs). All of these alternatives will provide equivalent or higher respiratory protection than N95 respirators when properly selected and worn.

Types of Respirators

There are three types of respirators for use in healthcare include:

Non-surgical filtering facepiece respirators

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Reusable respirators (half facepiece & full facepeice)

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Power air-purifying respirators (PAPRs)

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	Key Attributes	Key Potential Advantages	Key Potential Limitations	Select Examples
Non-surgical filtering facepiece respirators	Effectively filter airborne biological particles such as viruses and bacteria Designed to fit tightly to the face Certified as a particulate respirator	Low Cost Minimal care and maintenance Wide variety available	Wearer must be clean-shaven in area of the face-seal Fit with certain safety glasses	All 3M filtering facepiece respirators can filter biological particles, including these classes: • N95 • P95 • P100
Elastomeric respirators	Effectively filter airborne biological particles such as viruses and bacteria Designed to fit tightly to the face Multiple sizes Can be cleaned, disinfected and reused	Low Cost Reusable Eye protection (Full-face only)	Wearer must be clean shaven in area of the faceseal Fit with certain safety glasses (half-face) Storage, cleaning, and maintenance required Fit with Prescription eyewear (Fullface)	Any 3M elastomeric facepiece equipped with appropriate 3M particulate filters, per applicable regulatory approvals, including: • 7093, 7093C filters • P100 filters 5N11 & 5P71 pre-filter assemblies • 2000 series disc filters 6092X Series filters – cartridges • 5N11 & 5P71 pre-filter assemblies • 2000 series disc filters • 6092X Series filters – cartridges
Powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs)	Effectively filter airborne biological particles such as viruses and bacteria Designed to fit over some facial hair Variety of styles and facepiece/head top offerings Can be cleaned, disinfect	Wide variety of head-tops Limited facial hair permitted for loose-fitting head-gear Eye/face protection (certain headgear) More of the face is visible Low breathing burden and increased comfort	Storage, cleaning, and maintenance required Care, charging, and life of PAPR batteries Weight and size	All 3M PAPR particulate filters can filter biological particles

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How to Select Respirators for Your Workplace?

Choosing the right respirator is key. No matter how well-made your respirator is, it can’t filter out hazards it’s not designed for. Once you have the results of your exposure assessment, you’re ready to select appropriate protection for your employees.

Step 1: Know your hazard type

You’ll need to select equipment based on whether your work environment contains a particulate hazard (particles such as hazardous dusts or fibers), a gas or vapor hazard (such as solvent vapors or chlorine gas), or both types of hazards.

Generally, you protect against particulate hazards with a filter and against gas and vapors with a cartridge. If both types of hazards are present, combination cartridges are an option that can filter out both particles and gas or vapors

Step 2: Find out if your workers need respiratory protection

The exposure assessment should yield employee exposure levels for the substances you tested for. The results are typically measured in parts per million (ppm) or milligrams per cubic meter of air (mg/m3), commonly averaged over an eight-hour work shift.

Compare your exposure levels to the occupational exposure limit (OEL) or permissible exposure limit (PEL) set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to determine if action is required by law. You can often use values set by other groups, such as the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) – if those values are lower than the OEL. In any event, make sure both your measured concentrations and the levels to which you are comparing them (such as the OEL) use the same units of measure. For instance, both could be expressed in ppm for an eight-hour time-weighted average (TWA). Measurements may also be in the form of 15-minute short-term exposure limits (STEL) or a ceiling limit (C), which is the absolute limit that should never be exceeded at any time by a worker.

If your employee exposure levels are below the OEL, then respirators aren’t legally required, though you may still want to offer respirators for voluntary use. If your levels are above the limit, look to reduce exposures through engineering, or administrative controls. If putting those controls into place is not feasible, choose respiratory protection that helps bring exposures down to an acceptable level for workers.

Step 3: Determine the level of protection needed

The only respirators OSHA allows for use in the workplace are those approved by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). All NIOSH-approved respirators have an assigned protection factor (APF), which can range from 10 to 10,000.

The APF is the workplace level of respiratory protection that a respirator or class of respirators is expected to provide to employees when the employer implements a continuing, effective respiratory protection program as specified by 29 CFR 1910.134. For instance, an APF of 10 means the respirator can protect against exposure levels that are up to 10 times the PEL for that hazard.

To see what level of APF your workplace needs, divide your exposure levels by the exposure limit. (This is called the “hazard ratio.”) For instance:

Exposure level: 500 ppm
÷
OEL or PEL: 50 ppm
—
APF: 10

Step 4: Choose a respirator type

Once you know your required APF, you can narrow down your choices to those respirators that can reduce exposure to below the OEL. OSHA lists APFs for different types of respirators. For example, half-mask respirators with cartridges and filters have an APF of 10.

Besides choosing equipment appropriate for your workplace’s types and levels of hazards, you must also consider compatibility with other required protective equipment, such as safety glasses and hard hats. Glasses and half-face respirators, for example, may compete for space on the same part of the face — the bridge of the nose — so it’s vital to find equipment that fits together without causing either leakage around the respirator edges or loss of eye protection.

Comfort and ability to do the job are also important considerations; if the work is particularly strenuous, try to select respirators that are as lightweight and streamlined as possible. And keep in mind that people’s faces come in all shapes and sizes; you may need to select from a variety of models and sizes to find properly fitting respirators for all workers who need one