New technology will allow California to sterilize and reuse N95 masks

California will utilize new technology from the company Battelle that allows for the sterilization and reuse of N95 masks as early as this week, Mark Ghilarducci, with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, announced today.

CNN’s Julia Chatterley interviewed Battelle’s CEO, Lewis Von Thaer, Wednesday morning, who said that using hydrogen peroxide in vaporized form, “we proved that we could reuse these masks, basically decontaminate them for reuse up to 20 times with no degradation.”

“I’m very happy to report we’re up and operating in Ohio today,” Von Thaer told CNN. “Just going online in Seattle and Stonybrook, Long Island, and we’ll soon be online in Boston in the next few days… our goal is to set up regional systems and multiple hospitals come into that region because we can clean so many masks at one time.”