The new ISO respirator standard: don't hold your breath

New advances in Australian standards, based on extensive research and work by the International Standards Organization (ISO), will bring big changes to both manufacturers and users of breathing protection equipment. But how long will we have to wait?

For some Australian companies, the changes couldn’t come too soon. Other makers and distributors might view the future with some degree of apprehension, since a respiratory device made to minimum standards might no longer be good enough.

Essentially, the new ISO standard will mean that the onus is on manufacturers to design breathing devices that are fit for their intended purpose — not just to pass standards tests — and end users can expect a product that is made to perform well in their actual job.

The Australian Standard for respiratory protective devices has existed for many decades now. The standard we have today is both familiar and important to many respirator users.

But no matter how established the Australian Standard has become, things are about to change. Australia is one of many nations intent on adopting the new ISO standard when it is finalised.

We are in good company. Major industrialised countries on all continents are also signatories to the new standard, including some of the world’s largest economies. This means that the number of industries and workers that will welcome the ISO Standard is very large indeed.

What is the new ISO standard?

In many ways, the ISO standard brings with it a whole new way of thinking. While the world’s disparate standards have been centred on the product, the ISO standard instead focuses on the wearer of breathing protection and the work performed. In other words, the new standard is written with the human in mind.

One outcome of this mindset is simplification. While there previously have been well over 40 product standards, concerning the type of respiratory protection device, there will now be significantly fewer standards, looking at the protection performance of the product in a workplace setting.

The new ISO standard determines whether a breathing protection device is ‘fit for purpose’, depending on how and where it is used.

This means that many human factors come into the equation — many of which have never before been part of existing standards. They include:

• Ergonomics
• Work rate
• Facial features
• Dead space in the device
• Work of breathing
• Thermal effects
• Psychological effects
• Speech transmission

One of the most important physiological factors is how much air the wearer needs. The ISO standard uses a staggered scale of work rates. This means that a respirator is classified according to how hard the wearer can work without ‘out-breathing’ the device.

Inward leakage is another important consideration, and here the ISO standard presents several levels of protection. Here, too, it is the human that is in focus, and testing is not of the ‘laboratory machine type’, but involves human variations such as face and head shapes and sizes, and the different breathing patterns while performing various physical tasks.

Apart from the criteria mentioned above, many other factors are used in the ISO standard, some absent from existing standards. One important factor is work of breathing (WoB), which is not only a measurement of peak breathing resistance in the device but also addresses the overall physiological load on the wearer.

Time frame

When will the new standard come into force? Sadly, the ISO wheels turn painfully slowly, and the final release keeps being put back. The current target date for completion seems to be some time in 2018–2019. Add to that a five-year so-called ‘grandfather period’ where manufacturers can keep making and selling equipment to the old standards.

Some Australian manufacturers and distributors of respiratory safety equipment are currently lobbying for finalised sections of the ISO standard to begin to be adopted by Australia. Proponents of the ISO standard espouse the philosophy that it is the user and the task that are central to respirator selection — not just that the equipment passes minimum test requirements — and that the protection device must suit both the person and the job.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Wollwerth Imagery