  The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global shortage of personal protective
equipment. While existing supply chains are struggling to meet the surge in
demand, the limited supply of N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) has
placed healthcare workers at risk. This paper presents a method for scalable
and distributed manufacturing of FFR filter material based on a combination of
centrifugal melt spinning utilizing readily available cotton candy machines as
an example. The proposed method produces nonwoven polypropylene fabric material
with filtering efficiency of up to 96% for particles 0.30-0.49 {\mu}m in
diameter. We additionally demonstrate a scalable means to test for filtration
efficiency and pressure drop to ensure a standardized degree of quality in the
output material. We perform preliminary optimization of relevant parameters for
scale-up and propose that this is a viable method to rapidly produce up to one
million N95 FFRs per day in distributed manner with just six machines per site
operating across 200 locations. We share this work as a starting point for
others to rapidly construct, replicate and develop their own affordable modular
processes aimed at producing high quality filtration material to address the
current FFR shortage globally.

Applied Physics;Soft Condensed Matter