meltblown polypropylene may be more capable of surge than I previously assumed
Note that this factory was just producing polypropylene pellets, not melt-blown fabric or masks themselves.
The pellets also last ~indefinitely if well stored (no UV, no heat, minimal oxygen, low humidity), and so are well suited for stockpiling. But you’d probably want to move up the chain and stockpile the fabric instead, or perhaps N95s themselves, or perhaps reusable respirators, …
Knew it was a bit too good to be true 🥲 Meltblown PP rolls and facepiece moulds seem like the key upstream bottlenecks to N95 /​ reusable respirator production.
More reason to advocate for pre-securing offshore oil rig-style labour contracts + government compliance (NIOSH) for surging PPE production.
Intuitively, advocating for private companies to maximise production and removing the friction to do so feels more tractable than advocating federal governments to stockpile +5 billion additional N95s. Ideally we should still pursue both
Note that this factory was just producing polypropylene pellets, not melt-blown fabric or masks themselves.
The pellets also last ~indefinitely if well stored (no UV, no heat, minimal oxygen, low humidity), and so are well suited for stockpiling. But you’d probably want to move up the chain and stockpile the fabric instead, or perhaps N95s themselves, or perhaps reusable respirators, …
Knew it was a bit too good to be true 🥲 Meltblown PP rolls and facepiece moulds seem like the key upstream bottlenecks to N95 /​ reusable respirator production.
More reason to advocate for pre-securing offshore oil rig-style labour contracts + government compliance (NIOSH) for surging PPE production.
Intuitively, advocating for private companies to maximise production and removing the friction to do so feels more tractable than advocating federal governments to stockpile +5 billion additional N95s. Ideally we should still pursue both