Delta Dental of Michigan linked arms with its longtime partners, Michigan State University Extension, the MSU College of Engineering and Sparrow Hospital, to support a decontamination process that allows M95 respirators to be reused.

The dry heat decontamination process can be replicated in most commercial ovens, allowing masks to be disinfected up to 20 times.

“The MSU Extension team went from concept to testing this system in less than five days,” says Jeff Dwyer, MSU Extension director. “If it weren’t for the valuable partnership with Sparrow and funders like Delta Dental, we wouldn’t be able to keep this going.”

This summer, the project team is awaiting emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the team has been fielding inquires about the project from food processing companies throughout North America and Europe.