Can a sole-source justification be supported independently of the supplier's marketing?

Can a sole-source justification be supported independently of the supplier's marketing?

The peer-reviewed record is named separately from the company’s own wording.

That record is the peer-reviewed paper by Gong, Or, Sze et al., Microbiology Spectrum 12(9), e0409723, published by the American Society for Microbiology, doi:10.1128/spectrum.04097-23, with 31 researchers from 18 institutes in 4 countries, together with the certification bodies and laboratories named on the Validation page. The paper reports laboratory results on SARS-CoV-2 in contact with treated textile, on aerosolised bovine coronavirus passed through a test filter in a wind tunnel, and on bacterial viability on treated textiles; each result belongs to the article that was tested. The published paper states that the work was supported by unrestricted grants from C-POLAR Technologies, Inc., and in part by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS), the KGH Foundation and the University of British Columbia Okanagan, and that its authors declare no conflict of interest; it also states: “A.R. receives consulting fees from C-POLAR Technologies, Inc.” Three of its 31 authors list C-POLAR Technologies as their affiliation. The work was also supported in part by the US National Institutes of Health, grant AI132638, to M.K.M., which NIH RePORTER lists as Prof. Mansour's grant at Massachusetts General Hospital; the grant is printed in the paper's manuscript rather than in the published acknowledgments. The Terms of Use state that a citation, quotation, name, logo, link, or third-party test does not by itself mean that the third party sponsors, endorses, certifies, or approves C-POLAR, a C-POLAR product, a Site claim, or a proposed use. An institution's name is not a result: what a named test found is stated with the article, and with the standard and the report number where the report carries them. Three of the numbered laboratory reports behind the pathogen claim, each naming the article it tested, are these. Guangdong Detection Center of Microbiology, Report 2020FM20686R01E, 13 August 2020, tested a nonwoven filter medium against influenza A virus (H3N2) under ISO 18184:2014. Textile Testing Institute – Brno (TZÚ), Test Report AZL 26/0757-02, 3 July 2026, a laboratory accredited to ISO/IEC 17025, tested a MERV 15A filter medium under ISO 20743 and ISO 18184. Instituto Valenciano de Microbiología, Report D/26/B0483, 6 August 2026, tested a VOLZ PROsyntex PLUS PM1 70 filter medium against Aspergillus brasiliensis and Aspergillus niger under ISO 13629-2:2014. Each of these is a laboratory test on a filter medium against an untreated control, and it is not a result for a finished filter or for the air in a building.

Source: C-POLAR — Validation, https://cpolar.tech/validation/; C-POLAR — Terms of Use, section 7, https://cpolar.tech/terms/; Gong, Or, Sze et al., Microbiology Spectrum 12(9), e0409723, doi:10.1128/spectrum.04097-23; NIH RePORTER, project R01AI132638, read 20 September 2026, https://reporter.nih.gov/. A copy may be made available on our review of the request.

Reviewed on 21 September 2026.