NIOSH's National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory: Providing Personal Protective Technology Innovations For The 21st Century

The NIOSH National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL) is at the forefront of the Nation’s efforts to prevent work-related injury and illness by ensuring the development, certification, deployment, and use of personal protective equipment (PPE) and fully integrated, intelligent ensembles. They focus expertise from many scientific disciplines to advance Federal research on respirators and other personal protective technologies (PPT). Their efforts are essential for applying state-of-the-art science to meet the increasingly complex occupational safety and health challenges of the 21st century.

NPPTL’s strategic research program will ensure that the development of new PPE keeps pace with employer and worker needs as work settings and worker populations change and as new technologies emerge. Emerging technologies include (1) personal protective devices such as improved respirators, chemical-resistant clothing, hearing protectors, and safety goggles and glasses; and (2) devices that provide a worker with early warning of a hazard, such as sensors that detect toxic atmospheres, and communication devices used for safe deployment of emergency workers.