moreover, if we are referring to one-time-use "surgical mask", it's not made of woven fabric from cloth or cotton. it's made of non-woven fabric which is mostly plastic, although paper can also be considered non-woven fabric, but paper is seldom used in the making of (approved) surgical masks.
How are Surgical Masks Made?
Surgical face masks are made with non-woven fabric, which has better bacteria filtration and air permeability while remaining less slippery than woven cloth. The material most commonly used to make them is polypropylene, either 20 or 25 grams per square meter (gsm) in density. Masks can also be made of polystyrene, polycarbonate, polyethylene, or polyester.
20 gsm mask material is made in a spunbond process, which involves extruding the melted plastic onto a conveyor. The material is extruded in a web, in which strands bond with each other as they cool. 25 gsm fabric is made through meltblown technology, which is a similar process where plastic is extruded through a die with hundreds of small nozzles and blown by hot air to become tiny fibers, again cooling and binding on a conveyor. These fibers are less than a micron in diameter.
Surgical masks are made up of a multi-layered structure, generally by covering a layer of textile with non-woven bonded fabric on both sides. Non-wovens, which are cheaper to make and cleaner thanks to their disposable nature, are made with three or four layers. These disposable masks are often made with two filter layers effective at filtering out particles such as bacteria above 1 micron. The filtration level of a mask, however, depends on the fiber, the way it’s manufactured, the web’s structure, and the fiber’s cross-sectional shape. Masks are made on a machine line that assembles the nonwovens from bobbins, ultrasonically welds the layers together, and stamps the masks with nose strips, ear loops, and other pieces.
https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/other/how-surgical-masks-are-made/
How are N95 Masks Made?
A medical N95 respirator consists of multiple layers of nonwoven fabric, often made from polypropylene. The two outward protective layers of fabric, covering the inside and outside of the mask, are created using spun bonding. Spun bonding uses nozzles blowing melted threads of a thermoplastic polymer (often polypropylene) to layer threads between 15-35 micrometers on a conveyor belt, which build up into cloth as the belt continues down the line. Fibers are then bonded using thermal, mechanical, or chemical techniques. The two outer layers of the respirator, between 20 and 50 g/m2 in density, act as protection against the outside environment as well as a barrier to anything in the wearer’s exhalations.
Between the spun bond layers there’s a pre-filtration layer, which can be as dense as 250 g/m2, and the filtration layer. The prefiltration layer is usually a needled nonwoven. Nonwoven material is needle punched to increase its cohesiveness, which is accomplished by sending barbed needles repeatedly through the fabric to hook fibers together. The prefiltration layer is then run through a hot calendaring process, in which plastic fibers are thermally bonded by running them through high pressure heated rolls. This makes the pre-filtration layer thicker and stiffer, so it can be molded to form the desired shape and stay in that shape as the mask is used.
The last layer is a high efficiency melt-blown electret (or polarized) nonwoven material, which determines the filtration efficiency. Meltblowing is a process similar to spun bonding, in which multiple machine nozzles use air to spray threads of melted synthetic polymers onto a conveyor. However, these fibers are much smaller, as less than a micron wide. As the conveyor continues, the threads build up and bond by themselves as they cool, creating the fabric. However, sometimes melt-blown fabric is also thermally bonded to add strength and abrasion resistance, although the material then begins to lose some of its fabric characteristics. This process is covered in more depth in our
guide on how melt-blown fabric is made.
The full respirators are made through converting machinery, which combines the layers through ultrasonic welding and adds straps and metal strips to adjust the mask over the user’s nose. The respirators are then sterilized as a last step before being shipped.
https://www.thomasnet.com/articles/plant-facility-equipment/how-to-make-n95-masks/