{"doi":"10.1101/2020.07.17.20156497","title":"UV-C decontamination for N95 emergency reuse: Quantitative dose validation with photochromic indicators","abstract":"With COVID-19 N95 respirator shortages, frontline medical personnel are forced to reuse this disposable - but sophisticated - multilayer textile respirator. Widely used for decontamination of nonporous surfaces, UV-C light has germicidal efficacy on porous, non-planar N95 respirators when ≥1.0 J/cm^2 dose is applied across all surfaces. Here, we address outstanding limitations of photochromic indicators (qualitative readout and insufficient dynamic range) and introduce a photochromic UV-C dose quantification technique for: (1) design of UV-C treatments and (2) in-process UV-C dose validation. Our methodology establishes that color-changing dosimetry can achieve the necessary accuracy (>90%), uncertainty (<10%), and UV-C specificity (>95%). Furthermore, we adapt consumer electronics for accessible quantitative readout and extend the dynamic range >10× using optical attenuators. In a measurement infeasible with radiometers, we observe striking 20× dose variation over 3D N95 facepieces. By transforming photochromic indicators into quantitative dosimeters, we illuminate critical design considerations for both photochromic indicators and UV-C decontamination.","journal":"medRxiv","year":2020,"id":123884,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":3,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.957,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":492576,"name":"Samantha M. Grist","orcid":"0000-0001-7451-0538","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":499462,"name":"Alisha Geldert","orcid":"0000-0002-8134-2998","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":106243,"name":"Anjali Gopal","orcid":"0000-0002-7630-8154","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":420688,"name":"Amy E. Herr","orcid":"0000-0002-6906-2985","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":567483,"name":"Alison Su","orcid":"0000-0001-8099-9480","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":35,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:15:03.403566Z","pmid":"32743615","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}