The Properties Of Medical Protective Materials And Their Evaluation

Workers involved in treating and caring for individuals injured or sick may be exposed to biological liquids capable of transmitting dangerous infectious diseases such as HBV, HIV and SARS. Various protective clothing materials have been used to diminish the risk to the operating staff and minimize the infection between the patient and staff.However, the purchasers of hospital are all blindfold when face so many kinds of materials. A quite important reason is lack of evaluate standard on material properties, and the main purpose of our work is to construct the standard of medical protective materials.At first, We compare and analyze the protective clothing standards administered in America, Europe, Japan and China. Then, we survey several main districts producing medical protective materials and got 52 pieces of different material samples including woven cotton (cotton/polyester) reusable textiles, water-repellent treated woven cotton reusable textiles, spun-bond polypropylene disposable textiles, SMS disposable textiles, water-repellent treated laminate disposable textiles of pulps and polyester, spun-bond polypropylene with plastic films.Medical protective materials require good barrier, comfortable and physical. Then, we test all the samples we got according to the test methods. The items that we test include Hydrostatic pressure test, Spray test, Determination of water vapour Transmission rate, Electrostatic test methods for textile, Tensile properties of fabrics and Tear properties of fabrics. Then, we get the properties levels between different materials and also compare them to the standards.According to this study, we propose two national standards including nonwoven medical protective materials standard and woven medical protective materials standard. Five levels differentiate all the materials according to their barrier property. Every level of materials should test different items and have their own requirements.