Recent scares such as last year’s bird flu, SARS in 2003 and now swine flu only add to the urgency to provide low cost and effective barrier filtration to prevent or delay the spread of flu-like illnesses. By configuring existing proven medias, Monadnock Nonwovens has aligned polypropylene nonwoven media in weights ranging from 10 grams per square
foot to 25 grams per square foot with exceptionally low air resistance to meet the global challenge.

Monadnock NonWovens of Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania has a firmly established surgical face mask business supplying qualified roll goods to converters and producers of medical face masks for the dental and hospital markets. The key is to produce consistent media with a suitable combination of filtration and breathability that is easy to process and convert into a variety of face mask configurations. A standard test is the Bacteria Filtration Efficiency test (“BFE”) that categorizes surgical masks as low, moderate and high efficiency–typically 95%, 99%, or better than 99% efficiency with a corresponding resistance to air flow or breathability. Products made with Monadnock’s face mask media meet the most rigorous BFE requirements.

The Monadnock range of face mask media has been developed over 10 years and now includes a family of roll goods to meet most market requirements including the fast growing consumer or home market. New machinery was installed in 2008 to improve quality and boost capacity by 50% to help meet the growing market demand.