The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated the use of face masks, making them an integral part of the daily routine. Face masks occlude the infectious droplets during any respiratory event contributing to source control. In the current study, spray impingement experiments were conducted on porous surfaces like masks having a different porosity, pore size, and thickness. The spray mimics actual cough or a mild sneeze with respect to the droplet size distribution (20-500 μ m) and velocity scale (0-14 m/s), which makes the experimental findings physiologically realistic. The penetration dynamics through the mask showed that droplets of all sizes beyond a critical velocity penetrate through the mask fabric and atomize into daughter droplets in the aerosolization range, leading to harmful effects due to the extended airborne lifetime of aerosols. By incorporating spray characteristics along with surface tension and viscous dissipation of the fluid passing through the mask, multi-step penetration criteria have been formulated. The daughter droplet size and velocity distribution after atomizing through multi-layered masks and its effects have been discussed. Moreover, the virus-emulating particle-laden surrogate respiratory droplets are used in impingement experiments to study the filtration and entrapment of virus-like nanoparticles in the mask. Furthermore, the efficacy of the mask from the perspective of a susceptible person has been investigated.

Ever since the emergence of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the usage of makeshift facemasks is generally advised by policymakers as a possible substitute for commercially available surgical or N95 face masks. Although such endorsements could be economical and easily accessible in various low per-capita countries, the experimental evidence on the effectiveness of such recommendations is still lacking. In this regard, we carried out a detailed experimental investigation to study the fate of a large-sized surrogate cough droplet impingement at different velocities (corresponding to mild to severe coughs) on various locally procured cloth fabrics. Observation shows that larger ejected droplets (droplets that would normally settle as fomites in general) during a coughing event have enough momentum to penetrate single-layer cloth masks; the penetrated volume atomize into smaller daughter droplets that fall within aerosol range, thereby increasing infection potential. Theoretically, two essential criteria based on the balances of viscous dissipation-kinetic energy and surface tension-kinetic energy effects have been suggested for the droplet penetration through mask layers. Furthermore, a new parameter called η (the number density of pores for a fabric) is developed to characterize the volume penetration potential and subsequent daughter droplet size. Finally, the effect of mask washing frequency is analyzed. The outcomes from the current study can be used as a guide in selecting cloth fabrics for stitching multi-layered.