Facile nanostructured zinc oxide coating technique for antibacterial and antifouling air filters with low pressure drop.
J Colloid Interface Sci
; 612: 496-503, 2022 Apr 15.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34999554
ABSTRACT
Air filters effectively filtrate external contaminants including pathogenic bioaerosols; however, they also act as culture sites for the pathogenic bacteria captured in nutrient organic pollutants. Although many researchers have applied various antibacterial coatings to filters, the coating application inevitably increased the pressure drop, leading to the low efficiency and high energy consumption of the purification system. Herein, we report a simple nanostructured zinc oxide (ZnO) coating technique to confer a polypropylene nonwoven filter with superior antibacterial, antifouling and anti-biofilm properties without an additional pressure drop. For aerodynamic coating designs, filters were directly immersed into low concentration precursor solutions to enable the sedimentation of the ZnO sol-gel particles on the filter fibers according to fluid dynamic. The precursor concentration affected the surface topology and so properties of the as-fabricated coating. 0.07 M precursor solution produced a rose-like nanostructured coating exhibiting no pressure-drop increase. The large specific surface area and hydrophobic surface killed and then repelled the attached bacteria effectively. As a result, the bare filter promoted the growth and consequent biofilm formation of the surface bacteria in a favorable environment for the growth of microorganisms, while the coated filter successfully suppressed biofilm development.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Zinc Oxide
/
Biofouling
/
Air Filters
Language:
En
Journal:
J Colloid Interface Sci
Year:
2022
Document type:
Article