National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory | NPPTL | NIOSH

Updated January 6, 2021

For more information on COVID-19 and PPE, please visit:

Collection of Personal Protective Equipment

Optimizing PPE

Optimizing the Supply of Respirators and Other PPE

Warehouse with stockpile of N95 respirators

Stockpiled N95 Respirators

Release of Stockpiled N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirators Beyond the Manufacturer-Designated Shelf Life

Request a Respirator Assessment

NPPTL Respirator Assessments to Support the COVID-19 Response

Personal Protective Equipment for Novel Coronavirus

PPE FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions about Personal Protective Equipment

Respirator Evaluations

Performance Reports of Stockpiled Respirators

example of Air-Purifying Particulate Respirator

Powered Air-Purifying Respirator Standard

Interim Final Rule on Approval Tests and Standards for Air-Purifying Particulate Respirators

Trending Resources

Additional information on pertinent PPE topics: NIOSH Science Blogs, Infographics, Instructional and Fact Sheets, Videos, and Other Resources

100 Years of Respiratory Protection

This video was produced in 2019 to recognize the 100^th anniversary of the first respirator approval by the Bureau of Mines. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is now the federal body responsible for the testing and approval of respirators for occupational use. The purpose of this video is to demonstrate the evolution and importance of respiratory protection from the point of view of NIOSH workers within the NIOSH National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL), who are deeply invested in the work that they do.

Respirator Information

For Users

Worker wearing a flex MSA-Adv200LS respirator

User notices, filtering facepiece respirators, information for workers…

For Manufacturers

Approval support, test procedures, certified equipment, standards…

Approved Filtering Facepiece Respirators

Provides listing of particulate filtering facepiece respirators.

Trusted Information

Understand types of respirators, identify approved models…

Counterfeit Respirators / Misrepresentation of NIOSH-Approval

Counterfeit respirators are products that are falsely marketed and sold as being NIOSH-approved and may not be capable of providing appropriate respiratory protection.

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