Dr Giger's First breath

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After many months of exhaustive work she'd made her first working prototype breathing apparatus from the alien xenomorph's physiology. It was simple in application as a simple pullover mask and goggles.
Dr Giger had dissected this newly discovered species with unrelenting enthusiasm. She didn't sleep much with the excitement of the developments racing in her mind, her dreams filled with alien possibilities, and the benefits they could bring to humanity. Though there was occasionally something darker in the recesses of her dreams. Something she didn't understand, nor wish to interpret. The station's resident behavioural psychologist had offered to provide some professional insight to her dreams, but Dr Giger didn't trust her. The way Dr Giger's colleague spoke of the aliens, studied their behaviours was unsettling for Giger. There was something darker than even Giger's dark sense of humour in her colleague. The casual demeaner when "off the clock" didn't seem to match the almost obsessive work behaviour? Similar comments had been made about Giger, and both had laughed publicly, but both had resented the insinuations. A coincidence they were made to the station's two leading female scientists?
Despite the dangers outside of the alien creatures the joy of scientific discoveries drove Dr Giger on. In isolation such was the depth of her growing understanding of the alien physiology. Not fame or fortune. Those would be the inevitable side effects in time.
With vast mining resources untapped, and the prevalence of the aliens in the various catacombs and underground caverns, the company had faced great difficulty navigating the caves, particularly from the harsh atmospheric mix of silicate and sulphur dioxins made the cumbersome breathing suits essential. However, the confines presented accessibility issues to the exploration of the caverns when the aliens made their regular 'commutes' at night exploring the area surrounding their layer. The planet's above-ground atmosphere was better, with the possibility of brief unsuited exposure possible by humans. But anything more than a few minutes whilst unprotected would start to cause noticeable damage to the airways, and then irreparable harm.
Focussing initially on this issue, Dr Giger steeled herself to solving how the aliens coped in such harsh conditions, seemingly without breathing difficulties from the metallicised air particles, in the pitch black depths. She discovered an impressive bio-electrical magnetic filtering system incorporated into the alien's mouth cavity. This allowed the harmful particles to remain in the upper cavity portion of the mouth, rather than be taken in deeper to their airways. The aliens would then expel excess quantities at suitable intervals, and use this together with a natural resin like saliva they excreted, to form additional layers, structures and nests in which they would live and sleep in the caves. Giger had prototyped a hood recreating the alien's bio process.