Attribute Schema Library
Attribute schemasafety & PPE

Respirators Attributes: Schema Reference for Safety & PPE Catalogs

A respirator reduces a wearer's inhalation exposure to airborne particulates, gases, or vapors. The category spans filtering facepieces (FFRs), elastomeric half and full facepieces, the cartridges and filters that attach to them, PAPRs, supplied-air respirators, and SCBA. Buyers are EHS managers ordering against a written respiratory protection program under 29 CFR 1910.134, plus MRO and healthcare buyers reordering to a fit-tested standard they cannot deviate from.

Three things make the data hard. NIOSH approves assemblies, not parts: a facepiece and a cartridge share a TC number, so the spec that governs the sale lives across two SKUs. Compatibility is geometric and undocumented — 3M bayonet, Honeywell/North bayonet, and Rd40x1/7" threaded (EN 148-1) look alike in a photo, none interchange, and suppliers describe fitment in a marketing sentence rather than a field.

And two standards regimes run in parallel — 42 CFR 84 and EN 149 / EN 143 / EN 14387 — with an FDA layer on surgical N95s. Suppliers send whichever regime their home market uses, in whatever spelling their PDF carried.

Core

Every SKU needs these. Without them the record is not a product, it is a row.

Respirator Type
enum
Half-mask, elastomeric, air-purifying

The first cut on every filter rail. Determines fit testing, program requirements, and whether a cartridge is even involved.

Product Series / Platform
text
3M Rugged Comfort 6500QL Series

Series is what actually governs cartridge fitment and spare-part lookup. Buyers reorder by series, not by prose description.

Manufacturer Part Number
identifier
6502QL

The number written into the customer's respiratory protection program. Substitutions require a re-fit-test, so exact MPN match is non-negotiable.

Facepiece Size
enum
Medium

A respirator only works if it seals. Size is fit-test-bound; wrong size is a failed fit test, not a preference.

Contaminant Protection Type
enum
Combination — gas/vapor + particulate

Separates particulate-only from gas/vapor from combination. A carbon cartridge stops no particles; a P100 stops no vapor.

NIOSH Filter Series & Efficiency
enum
P100

N/R/P sets oil resistance; 95/99/100 sets efficiency per 42 CFR 84. If oil aerosol is present, N-series is excluded outright.

Cartridge / Filter Attachment Type
enum
Bayonet (3M 6000/7000/FF-400)

Bayonet platforms and Rd40x1/7" threaded ports do not interchange. This single enum prevents most wrong-part shipments in the category.

Face Seal Material
enum
Silicone

Silicone vs thermoplastic elastomer vs natural rubber drives chemical resistance, cleaning regime, and allergy screening.

Differentiating

What buyers actually compare on. This is where catalogs win or lose the filter.

Gas/Vapor Cartridge Class
enum
Organic Vapor / Acid Gas (OV/AG)

Which sorbent, and against what. Organic vapor, acid gas, ammonia/methylamine, formaldehyde, mercury — each is a distinct approval.

Assigned Protection Factor (APF)
number
10

OSHA Table 1 value. Buyers size the respirator to measured exposure: half mask 10, full facepiece 50, loose-fitting hood/helmet PAPR 25.

Exhalation Valve Type
enum
Cool Flow valve

Drives heat and CO2 buildup over a shift — and disqualifies the SKU where a valve is not permitted (source control, cleanrooms).

Head Harness / Donning System
enum
Quick-latch drop-down, 4-point

Decides whether the wearer can drop the mask without removing a hard hat or faceshield. A real comparison axis, almost never a filterable field.

Cartridge Color Code
enum
Magenta (P100)

Per ANSI K13.1-1973, incorporated by reference in 42 CFR 84.113/84.193. Stockroom staff reorder by color; buyers search by it.

End-of-Service-Life Indicator (ESLI)
boolean
false

1910.134 requires an ESLI or a written change schedule. ESLI-equipped cartridges remove a compliance task, and buyers will pay for that.

Compliance & identifiers

Standards, regulatory data, and the identifiers channels reject you for missing.

NIOSH Approval Number
identifier
TC-84A-0007

The verifiable fact. Safety managers check it against the NIOSH Certified Equipment List before an order is released.

EN Class Marking
enum
FFP3 NR D (EN 149:2001+A1:2009)

The EU/UK regime — EN 149 for FFRs, EN 143 for particle filters, EN 14387 for gas filters. Not interchangeable with NIOSH classes.

Surgical Clearance & Fluid Resistance
enum
FDA cleared; ASTM F1862 at 160 mmHg

A surgical N95 is both NIOSH approved and FDA regulated (product code MSH), tested to ASTM F1862. Healthcare contracts require the distinction.

Country of Origin
enum
United States

Gates TAA-compliant government sale and drives duty. Domestic-origin N95s are a named requirement in many healthcare and federal contracts.

The fields that aren't in the schema at all

What most respirators catalogs are missing.

The table above is the schema most catalogs already have. These are the attributes that usually aren't in it — each one surfaced by a signal from the live market rather than by an audit of what's already there. This is what Anglera's Schema Foundry does on a real catalog, in this category.

Supplier signal
+ Compatible Facepiece / Cartridge Cross-Reference

Cartridge PDPs state fitment in a marketing sentence — 'for use with 6000/7000/FF-400 Series' — never as a structured link. No distributor rail offers 'cartridges that fit my 6502QL'.

Buyer orders a 40mm threaded canister for a bayonet facepiece. Return, restock, and a fit-tested worker sent back to the job with nothing to wear.

Search signal
+ NIOSH Approval Number (TC-) as a structured field

The NIOSH Certified Equipment List is searchable by TC number, and that is where safety managers verify. Catalogs print 'NIOSH approved' in a bullet with no TC field to search or export.

EHS buyer cannot match the SKU to the approval numbers named in their written program. The RFQ moves to whoever can hand over TC numbers in a spreadsheet.

Competitor signal
+ End-of-Service-Life Indicator (ESLI) flag

NIOSH approves ESLI cartridges as a distinct class, and 1910.134 makes ESLI the alternative to writing a change schedule. Almost no catalog carries a boolean a buyer can filter on.

The one attribute that removes a compliance burden is invisible at point of sale, so the ESLI SKU competes on price against a cartridge that isn't equivalent.

Supplier signal
+ Shelf Life / Date of Manufacture policy

Manufacturer datasheets publish it plainly — five years from date of manufacture, stored -20°C to +30°C at under 80% RH. The field rarely survives the trip into the catalog.

Stockpile and hospital buyers cannot plan rotation or verify remaining life before PO. Aged inventory gets rejected at receiving.

Marketplace signal
+ Natural Rubber Latex Content

Healthcare GPOs and hospital supply chains screen latex as a hard gate. PPE catalogs carry face seal material but rarely a latex-content field, so 'latex-free' returns nothing.

Item fails GPO contract loading, or a latex-sensitive clinician is issued the wrong mask. The SKU is silently dropped from the healthcare channel.

How Schema Foundry finds these

Messy in, governed out.

The same value, spelled every way safety & PPE suppliers spell it. A filter only works once they agree.

NIOSH Filter Series & Efficiency
P-100P 100HEPA99.97% filterMagenta P100P100 (HEPA)
P100

Buyers type 'HEPA' and mean P100. Collapse the synonyms, but keep the N/R/P distinction — oil resistance is not cosmetic.

Cartridge / Filter Attachment Type
BayonetTwist-on3M Bayonet40mmRd40Threaded
Bayonet (3M 6000/7000/FF-400)

'Threaded', '40mm' and 'Rd40' all mean Rd40x1/7" per EN 148-1 — a different port entirely. Merging these ships unusable pairs.

Facepiece Size
MMedMedium6502 (M)UniversalOne Size
Medium

3M encodes size in the last digit (6501/6502/6503 = S/M/L). If size never leaves the part number, size filtering is dead.

Respirator Type
Dust maskN95 maskDisposable respiratorFFRParticulate respiratorFace mask
Filtering facepiece respirator (FFR)

'Dust mask' and 'face mask' also get applied to non-NIOSH nuisance masks. Collapsing them hides the approval line that matters.

What buyers ask

Every one of these should be answerable from the attributes above. If it isn't, that's a gap.

  • Which cartridges fit a 3M 6502QL — will a 40mm threaded canister work?
  • There's oil mist in this cell. Can I still use N95, or do I need R or P?
  • What's the TC number so I can verify it on the NIOSH CEL before I release the PO?
  • APF 10 on a half mask — enough at 8x the PEL, or do I go full facepiece?
  • Does this cartridge have an ESLI, or do I have to write a change schedule?
  • Is this the surgical N95 our fit test protocol is written around, or the industrial one?
  • Which sizes does this facepiece come in, and do I order S/M/L as separate lines?
  • How long can this sit in the stockroom before it's out of shelf life?

What channels require

The same SKU, different mandatory fields per destination.

Distributor's own faceted site search
Respirator TypeFacepiece SizeNIOSH Filter Series & EfficiencyCartridge / Filter Attachment TypeProduct Series / PlatformAssigned Protection Factor (APF)
Amazon Business
GTIN / UPCBrandManufacturer Part NumberCountry of OriginNIOSH Approval NumberRespirator Type
Healthcare GPO / GHX item master
GTIN-14FDA product code & UDI-DISurgical Clearance & Fluid ResistanceNatural Rubber Latex ContentNIOSH Approval Number
GSA Advantage / federal contract
Manufacturer Part NumberCountry of Origin (TAA)NIOSH Approval NumberUNSPSC (46182002 / 46182005)Pack Quantity & Selling Unit

Respirators data, in practice

What's the difference between the N, R, and P filter series?

42 CFR 84 classifies non-powered particulate filters on two axes. The letter is oil resistance: N is not resistant to oil, R is oil-resistant but limited to a single 8-hour shift of oil exposure, P is oil-proof with a manufacturer-set service time. The number is minimum filter efficiency — 95, 99, or 99.97, which is marked 100. So P100 means oil-proof at 99.97%. Where no oil aerosol is present, any of N/R/P is permitted. Where oil is present, N is out. Catalogs that carry this as free text lose the ability to answer the only question that matters here: is there oil in the air?

Should the NIOSH approval number sit on the facepiece SKU, the cartridge SKU, or both?

Both — because NIOSH approves the assembly, not the component. A TC number covers a specific combination of facepiece, cartridge or filter, and sometimes accessories, printed on the approval label that ships in the box. The same facepiece appears under different TC numbers depending on what's attached: a chemical cartridge combination falls under TC-23C, a particulate filter or a combination with a particulate filter falls under TC-84A. Model TC as a repeating field on every SKU, listing each approval that SKU participates in. Then a buyer moves from the TC number written into their program straight to a valid order line, which is the path they are already on.

How do you handle cartridge/facepiece compatibility without hand-maintaining a matrix?

Geometry does most of the work. Model Cartridge / Filter Attachment Type as a governed enum — bayonet, qualified by platform, or threaded Rd40x1/7" per EN 148-1 — and pair it with Product Series. Compatibility becomes a query instead of a curated list that goes stale on the next catalog drop. The residual cases still need the TC field: a cartridge can physically seat on a bayonet port and still not be part of an approved assembly with that facepiece. Source both values from the manufacturer's approval label and datasheet, not from the marketing bullet, which is where they usually get lost.

Can we map EN 149 classes onto NIOSH classes to unify the catalog?

No, and forcing the mapping is a real error. EN 149 tests filtering half masks with sodium chloride and paraffin oil aerosols at 95 L/min and adds a total inward leakage requirement measured on human subjects. 42 CFR 84 tests filter penetration on the media at 85 L/min, with no inward leakage requirement in the approval test. FFP2 is loosely compared to N95 and FFP3 to N99/N100, but they are not equivalents and are not substitutable inside a written respiratory protection program. Carry both markings as separate fields and let the buyer's regulatory regime decide which one they filter on.

More safety & PPE schemas

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