Adding A Nylon Stocking Layer Could Boost Protection From Cloth Masks, Study Finds

During World War II, nylon stockings disappeared from store shelves as the valuable synthetic material was diverted to make critical wartime supplies like parachutes, flak jackets and aircraft fuel tanks. Now, new research suggests nylon stockings could once again play a critical role in a national battle — this time by making homemade cloth masks significantly more protective.

Researchers at Northeastern University have found that adding an outer layer made from nylon stockings to a homemade face covering can boost its ability to filter out small particles in the air by creating a tighter seal between the mask and the wearer's face. In some cases, that extra nylon layer helped homemade cloth masks match or exceed the filtering capability of medical-grade surgical masks.

"It really improved the performance of all of the masks, and it brought several of them up and over the baseline mask we were using, which was a 3M surgical type mask," says, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northeastern University, one of the scientists who conducted the research.