PJSC Severstal (one of the world's leading vertically integrated steel and mining companies) has purchased a line for the production of industrial respirators. The first equipment under the contract has already been delivered to the industrial site of the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant (CherMK, part of the Severstal Russian Steel division).
“The safety and security of our employees, people in the regions is our absolute priority. The situation with the new coronavirus infection has revealed the difficulties of stable provision of one of the main PPE - respirators. The key goal of the implementation of the investment project announced today is to eliminate dependence on the market for suppliers of personal protective equipment, ”says Alexander Shevelev, CEO of Severstal. –Productivity of the line will amount to about 600 thousand respirators per month when working in two shifts. This volume meets the needs of all assets of our company. The line will be capable of producing 3-6-layer respirators of the KN95 and KN99 types with and without valve of protection classes FFP1, FFP2 and FFP3. For the production of respirators, materials and technologies will be used that meet the requirements of Russian legislation. ”
Separately, the company conducted a search and selection of materials for the production of respirators on its own line. In particular, the key ones are spunbond for the outer and adjacent layers of the face, as well as meltblown as a filtering material. For Severstal, according to the agreement, they will come from foreign suppliers (the country of origin is China), since the production of such materials on the domestic market is currently limited. The selected materials have passed preliminary tests in an independent laboratory and meet the requirements of Russian standards. After the line is launched, the first industrial batches of respirators will also be sent for testing with subsequent product certification. Severstal specialists have already reached preliminary agreements on carrying out such procedures with external laboratories and certification bodies.
In the process of detailed design of the line, together with a partner, a complex for the production of respirators was developed and a fully automated technological process was developed, which has no analogues in the Russian Federation. - from the molding of masks, their marking, welding of breathing valves and head elastic bands, to the packaging of finished PPE.
The line for the production of respirators will be put into operation before the end of the year. An additional six new jobs will be created for its operation.
