Plasmonic and Superhydrophobic Self-Decontaminating N95 Respirators.
ACS Nano
; 14(7): 8846-8854, 2020 07 28.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-612577
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic is endangering the world due to the spread of respiration droplets with viruses. Medical workers and frontline staff need to wear respirators to protect themselves from breathing in the virus-containing respiration droplets. The most frequently used state-of-the-art respirators are of N95 standard; however, they lack self-decontamination capabilities. In addition, the viruses and bacteria can accumulate on the respirator surfaces, possessing high risks to the wearers over long-term usage. Photothermal decontamination is a contactless, fast, low-cost, and widely available method, capable of decontaminating the respirators. Herein, we report a plasmonic photothermal and superhydrophobic coating on N95 respirators, possessing significantly better protection than existing personal protection equipment. The plasmonic heating can raise the surface temperature to over 80 °C for this type of respirator within 1 min of sunlight illumination. The superhydrophobic features prohibit respiration droplets from accumulating on the respirator surfaces. The presence of the silver nanoparticles can provide additional protection via the silver ion's disinfection toward microbes. These synergistic features of the composite coatings provide the N95 respirator with better protection and can inspire experts from interdisciplinary fields to develop better personal protection equipment to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Respiratory Protective Devices
/
Disinfection
/
Equipment Design
/
Printing, Three-Dimensional
/
Personal Protective Equipment
/
Masks
Type of study:
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
ACS Nano
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Acsnano.0c03504
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