A staff member works in a factory producing face mask in Southwest China's Sichuan Province. Photo: cnsphoto

A private company in Jiaxing, East China's Zhejiang Province, has developed a new material to replace the melt-blown fabric for making face masks. The new material will help alleviate the current shortage of masks on the market and are likely to ease the elevated prices of masks.

Zhejiang Zhaohui Filtration Technology (ZFT) announced the development of the new material to replace melt-blown fabric for epidemic prevention, according to the Economy and Information Technology Department of the province on Saturday. 

Different from the melt-blown fabric, crucial to making a mask, the new fabric has the characteristics of low resistance, high efficiency and easy cleaning, the report said. The mask using the new material can be used 10 times. 

The company said the product has passed a comprehensive test and is listed in the Zhejiang province's mask material list.

The company has resumed production in late January. After transformation and upgrading of the production line, the production capacity of the enterprise's coated material was increased from 40,000 square meters to 60,000 square meters a day, according to official news platform of Zhejiang government Zjol.com.cn .

Now, the enterprise has received orders for 300,000 square meters of the new filter material. Its clients include Electrolux, 3M, Hitachi and Tesco.