Double-Grafted PET Fiber Material to Remove Airborne Bacteria with High Efficiency
Yuxin Lin, Jingyi Chen, Yuhan Mai, Liyun Chen, Zheng Chen, Guodong Wang, Lina Deng, Peng Xu, Cai Yuan, Longguang Jiang, Mingdong Huang
Abstract
Air pollution caused by bacteria and viruses has posed a serious threat to public health. Commercial air purifiers based on dense fibrous filters can remove particulate matter, including airborne pathogens, but do not kill them efficiently. Here, we developed a double-grafted antibacterial fiber material for the high-efficiency capture and inactivation of airborne microorganisms. Tetracarboxyl phthalocyanine zinc, a photosensitizer, was first grafted onto the polyester (PET) fiber, followed by coating with chitosan on the surface of PET fiber to make a double-grafted fiber material. Under the irradiation of light with a specific wavelength (680 nm), double-grafted fiber materials killed up to 99.99% of Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria and had a significant antibacterial effect on drug-resistant bacteria. The double-grafted PET fiber showed broad-spectrum antibacterial activities and was capable to inactivate drug-resistant bacteria. Notably, in filtration experiments for airborne bacteria, this double-grafted PET fiber demonstrated a high bacteria capture efficiency (95.68%) better than the untreated PET fiber (64.87%). Besides, the double-grafted PET fiber was capable of efficiently killing airborne bacteria. This work provides a new idea for the development of air filtration materials that can efficiently kill airborne pathogen and has good biosafety.