Researchers use nanotechnology to develop new coronavirus mask model

Over 100 million confirmed cases of coronavirus disease till now and over million people dead. This is an big pains of the whole world for this 21th century. The spread out of virus is less controlled at this time. Different vaccines are producing on many countries. However, no one can estimate what will happen next in the near future for humans. 

Always bring hand-washing, nanotechnology face masks, and social distance is mostly necessary for all people at this period when outside. However, which face mask's features you should buy and where to buy it is very important thing for consideration carefully. Nowadays, researchers use nanotechnology to develop new coronavirus mask model. 

An US-based research team from The George Washington University and the University of California Riverside designed and fabricated electro-spun nanofibrous air filters that hold promise for applications in personal protective equipment and indoor environments. They developed advanced electro-spun air filters for capturing coronavirus aerosols – showing an excellent performance of up to 99.9%. They show that these filters outperform many commercially available face masks.

Electrospinning is a new technology to synthesize non-woven nanofibrous membranes that are ideal for air filtration. Here, a polymer solution is ejected into a strong electric field to form fine nanofibers having reduced pore size. This enables the effective capture of small airborne particles.

The fiber diameter of the electrospun filters used in this study ranges between 0.2-1.3 microns. The electrospun filters had a mean pore size ≤ 2.7 microns, whereas all the commercial masks had a mean pore size ≥ 17.5 microns.

Because the electrospinning operates under a strong electric field (i.e., 1-5 kV cm-1), the filters retain surface and volume charges that significantly promotes aerosol capture through electrostatic attraction.

Researchers selected Murine hepatitis virus A59 (MHVA59), a coronavirus in the same family as SARS-CoV-2, for aerosol generation and filtration. They demonstrated that the NaCl aerosols are an eligible surrogate for the coronavirus aerosols in the filtration tests when air filters and face masks with diverse pore sizes, morphologies, and efficiencies were used.

Most air filters used in residential, commercial, and industrial buildings – except high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters – used in healthcare facilities only capture larger particles like dust, mold spores, or bacteria but not airborne viruses. 

By Dr. Ramya Dwivedi, Ph.D on News-Medical

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