Linders, M. J. F.
Tuinman, I. L.
Hoefs, J. H. M.
van Bokhoven, J. J. G. M.

TNO-Prins Maurits Laboratory
Rijswijk
The Netherlands

Respiratory protection research at TNO-PML is primarily directed to filtering devices.  It focuses both on improvement of design and use of activated carbon filters and on more realistic test methodology.  Most of the work is performed under contract for the Dutch MoD.  In the presentation three examples of current research will be described briefly.

First our ongoing work on sorption process simulation will be discussed.  The objective is to extent the validity of our present simulation model to a greater number of practical situations.  One important specific item is the inclusion of multiple adsorption into the model.

A second project aims at defining physical simulants for assessing the protection level of respiratory protection devices to be used against bioagents.  The general approach will be presented as well as some preliminary results.  Our expectation is that, at least for some situations, bioaerosols can be represented by physical aerosols.

The third project also addresses test methodology of respiratory protective devices.  A method is being developed for assessing the field protection level of military gas masks, which is the equivalent of one of the various of Work Place Protection Factors.  Characteristic for the method is that the test subject should be capable of performing normal duty activities.  The method includes the use of the TSI PortaCount.