A new environmental conditioning laboratory facility now operational in NIOSH’s National Personal Protective Technology Laboratory (NPPTL) will advance NIOSH’s in-house capabilities in testing and certifying air-purifying respirators. Employers and users rely on NIOSH certification for assurance that a respirator will provide needed protection against hazardous and potentially life-threatening air contaminants. In the new facility, air-purifying respirators submitted for testing and certification are subjected to extreme conditions by being baked, frozen, steamed, dropped, and shaken as part of testing. These conditions simulate conditions that devices may experience in actual field use. Performing these essential tests in-house will significantly reduce the amount of time a respirator spends in the certification process. Before, respirators were sent to the U.S. Army’s Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center in Maryland for those tests. For more information on NPPTL and the NIOSH respirator certification program, visit www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/.