Hierarchically Nano-Decorated Poly(lactic acid) Nanofibers for Humidity-Resistant Respiratory Healthcare and High-Accuracy Disease Diagnosis
Jiaqi Li, Xinjian He, Lv Ke, Cunmin Wang, Yuyang Chen, Guiying Zhu, Jiang Shao, Yifan Zhang, Mingming Zhang, Jiefeng Gao, Huan Xu
Abstract
The application of biodegradable and eco-friendly poly(lactic acid) (PLA) nanofibrous membranes (NFMs) toward respiratory healthcare has long been thwarted by the poor electroactivity and low surface activity of PLA. Herein, we unravel a microwave-assisted route to fabricate rod-like ZnO nanodielectrics, which were decorated with dopamine (ZnO@PDA) and anchored at the PLA nanofibers via an electrospinning–electrospray approach. The PLA/ZnO@PDA NFMs featured a substantially elevated specific surface area (up to 20.7 m 2 /g), increased dielectric constant (nearly 1.8) and a surface potential as high as 9.5 kV, resulting in superior air filtering performance (99.45% for PM 0.3, 94.1 Pa, 32 L/min) compared with the pure PLA counterpart (90.04%, 169.0 Pa, 32 L/min). The notably increased electroactivity endowed the PLA/ZnO@PDA NFMs with significant improvements in triboelectric properties (output voltage of 11.5 V at 10 N, 0.5 Hz), laying down the cornerstone for self-powered monitoring of personal respiration. More importantly, a deep learning-assisted diagnostic system was developed based on respiration-driven signal patterns, enabling intelligent and real-time disease diagnosis with 100% accuracy for the protective membranes. The proposed hierarchical nanodecoration strategy opens up new possibilities for engendering eco-friendly nanofibers with an exceptional combination of efficient respiratory healthcare and intelligent diagnosis.