RICHMOND, Va. — Gov. Ralph Northam announced Virginia will receive three Battelle Critical Care Decontamination Systems that sterilize personal protective equipment for reuse.
One of the decontamination systems will operate in the city of Newport News.
The system will be installed at a warehouse site in the Hampton Roads Sanitation District.
The two other cities that will operate the systems are Blacksburg and Chesterfield County.
The decontamination system can sterilize up to 240,000 units of personal protective equipment (PPE) per day for reuse. This includes N95 masks.
According to a news release the "Battelle CCDS uses a concentrated hydrogen peroxide vapor to decontaminate N95 masks, which can sustain up to 20 decontamination cycles without degrading filtration performance."
Sterilizing and reusing PPE will help with the national shortage facing healthcare workers and first responders on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“An ongoing, stable supply of PPE is key to moving Virginia forward from the COVID-19 pandemic,” Gov. Northam said in the news release.
“This innovative new technology will extend the life of critical PPE like N95 masks, giving our medical facilities and first responders greater access to much-needed supplies and helping the Commonwealth manage our resources amid a nationwide shortage.”
The other systems will be installed at the Marching Virginians Center on the Virginia Tech campus, and the Vietnam Veterans Pavilion at the Chesterfield County Fairgrounds.
