Protection Factor
General
Protection factor is a measure of how much the content of pollutants decreases with protection.
A protection factor of 100 reduces the level of pollutants in the ambient air 100 times, for example from 50 to 0.5 ppm.
At the same time, the protection factor indicates how many times longer you can be, e.g. in hazardous gas, compared to without protection. For example, protection factor 500 gives that one hour without protection corresponds to 500 hours with protection.
Protection factor / Penetration
The studies that have been done on the garments have analysed the penetration of hazardous PAHs. Penetration is the opposite of the protection factor, so if the penetration is, for example, 1/1000, the protection factor is 1000.
Protection factor for CPP's undergarments
The protection factor indicates how many times longer you can stay in fire gas compared to without protection. See our studies for more detailed info
New (unused) garments:
Standard1 has a protection factor of 15
CPP2 has protection factor 3300
=> CPP has about 220 times better protection against PAH
Garments used in 12 smoke dives of 25 minutes each3
Standard1 has a protection factor of 11
CPP2 has a protection factor of 660
=> CPP has about 66 times better protection against PAH
Garments used in 24 smoke dives of 25 minutes each4
Standard1 has a protection factor of 7
CPP2 has a protection factor of 132
=> CPP has about 19 times better protection against PAH
The skin's average exposure of PAHs during those 24 smoke dives (600 min/10 hours) with vs without CPP is:
70 times higher
=>> 35 years with CPP gives less exposure of PAH to the skin than 6 months with standard5
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1Standard fire suit together with standard undergarment
2Standard fire suit together with CPP adsorptive (activated carbon) undergarment
312 smoke dives of 25 min each (300 min / 5 hours) + 11 washes
424 smoke dives in 25 min each (600 min / 10 hours) + 22 washes
5Calculated as the average exposure of PAHs during 24 smoke dives. CPP's protection factor is more than 70 times higher than standard