Reusable face masks are an important alternative for minimizing costs of disposable and surgical face masks during pan-demics.Often complementary to washing,a prolonged lifetime of face masks relies on the incorporati...Reusable face masks are an important alternative for minimizing costs of disposable and surgical face masks during pan-demics.Often complementary to washing,a prolonged lifetime of face masks relies on the incorporation of self-cleaning materials.The development of self-cleaning face mask materials requires the presence of a durable catalyst to deactivate contaminants and microbes after long-term use without reducing filtration efficiency.Herein,we generate self-cleaning fibers by functionalizing silicone-based(polydimethylsiloxane,PDMS)fibrous membranes with a photocatalyst.Coaxial electro-spinning is performed to fabricate fibers with a non-crosslinked silicone core within a supporting shell scaffold,followed by thermal crosslinking and removal of the water-soluble shell.Photocatalytic zinc oxide nanoparticles(ZnO NPs)are immo-bilized on the PDMS fibers by colloid-electrospinning or post-functionalization procedures.The fibers functionalized with ZnO NPs can degrade a photo-sensitive dye and display antibacterial properties against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria(Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus)due to the generation of reactive oxygen species upon irradiation with UV light.Furthermore,a single layer of functionalized fibrous membrane shows an air permeability in the range of 80-180 L/m^(2)s and 65%filtration efficiency against fine particulate matter with a diameter less than 1.0µm(PM_(1.0)).展开更多
基金Funding Open Access funding provided by Lib4RI-Library for the Research Institutes within the ETH Domain:Eawag,Empa,PSI&WSL.
文摘Reusable face masks are an important alternative for minimizing costs of disposable and surgical face masks during pan-demics.Often complementary to washing,a prolonged lifetime of face masks relies on the incorporation of self-cleaning materials.The development of self-cleaning face mask materials requires the presence of a durable catalyst to deactivate contaminants and microbes after long-term use without reducing filtration efficiency.Herein,we generate self-cleaning fibers by functionalizing silicone-based(polydimethylsiloxane,PDMS)fibrous membranes with a photocatalyst.Coaxial electro-spinning is performed to fabricate fibers with a non-crosslinked silicone core within a supporting shell scaffold,followed by thermal crosslinking and removal of the water-soluble shell.Photocatalytic zinc oxide nanoparticles(ZnO NPs)are immo-bilized on the PDMS fibers by colloid-electrospinning or post-functionalization procedures.The fibers functionalized with ZnO NPs can degrade a photo-sensitive dye and display antibacterial properties against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria(Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus)due to the generation of reactive oxygen species upon irradiation with UV light.Furthermore,a single layer of functionalized fibrous membrane shows an air permeability in the range of 80-180 L/m^(2)s and 65%filtration efficiency against fine particulate matter with a diameter less than 1.0µm(PM_(1.0)).
