Self-Cleaning Microwave-Responsive MXene-Coated Filtration System for Enhanced Airborne Virus Disinfection

Fangzhou Liu; Qingquan Ma; Jiahe Zhang; Jian Wang; Dheeban Govindan; Mengqiang Zhao; Cuiling Gao; Yang Li; Wen Zhang

doi:10.1021/acsami.5c02969

Self-Cleaning Microwave-Responsive MXene-Coated Filtration System for Enhanced Airborne Virus Disinfection

Fangzhou Liu, Qingquan Ma, Jiahe Zhang, Jian Wang, Dheeban Govindan, Mengqiang Zhao, Cuiling Gao, Yang Li, Wen Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent demand for advanced air disinfection technologies. Traditional air filters primarily capture large airborne particles but are ineffective against submicrometer aerosols. This study introduces a microwave-enabled catalytic air filtration system using Ti₃C₂T_x MXene-coated polypropylene filters to enhance air disinfection. With only 0.05 mg·cm^-2 of MXene coating, the filter surface temperature rapidly reached 104 °C within 3 s under 125 W microwave irradiation. Such surface heating led to a significantly higher log removal value (LRV) (1.86 ± 0.47) of the MS2 bacteriophage in the synthetic bioaerosol with an initial concentration of 10⁵ PFU·mL^-1, compared to 0.24-0.38 achieved by the pristine filter or the MXene-coated filter without microwave irradiation. Additionally, the filter surface exhibited promising self-cleaning behavior, as indicated by the stable viral inactivation and removal efficiency even in high-humidity environments. This innovative air filtration technology shows promising potential for preventing airborne pathogen transmission and protecting public health across diverse environmental conditions.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	27167-27177
Number of pages	11
Journal	ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Volume	17
Issue number	18
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.5c02969
State	Published - May 7 2025

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

General Materials Science

Keywords

air disinfection
air filtration
microwave
MXene
self-cleaning

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10.1021/acsami.5c02969

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title = "Self-Cleaning Microwave-Responsive MXene-Coated Filtration System for Enhanced Airborne Virus Disinfection",

abstract = "The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent demand for advanced air disinfection technologies. Traditional air filters primarily capture large airborne particles but are ineffective against submicrometer aerosols. This study introduces a microwave-enabled catalytic air filtration system using Ti3C2Tx MXene-coated polypropylene filters to enhance air disinfection. With only 0.05 mg·cm-2 of MXene coating, the filter surface temperature rapidly reached 104 °C within 3 s under 125 W microwave irradiation. Such surface heating led to a significantly higher log removal value (LRV) (1.86 ± 0.47) of the MS2 bacteriophage in the synthetic bioaerosol with an initial concentration of 105 PFU·mL-1, compared to 0.24-0.38 achieved by the pristine filter or the MXene-coated filter without microwave irradiation. Additionally, the filter surface exhibited promising self-cleaning behavior, as indicated by the stable viral inactivation and removal efficiency even in high-humidity environments. This innovative air filtration technology shows promising potential for preventing airborne pathogen transmission and protecting public health across diverse environmental conditions.",

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author = "Fangzhou Liu and Qingquan Ma and Jiahe Zhang and Jian Wang and Dheeban Govindan and Mengqiang Zhao and Cuiling Gao and Yang Li and Wen Zhang",

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AU - Liu, Fangzhou

AU - Ma, Qingquan

AU - Zhang, Jiahe

AU - Wang, Jian

AU - Govindan, Dheeban

AU - Zhao, Mengqiang

AU - Gao, Cuiling

AU - Li, Yang

AU - Zhang, Wen

PY - 2025/5/7

Y1 - 2025/5/7

N2 - The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent demand for advanced air disinfection technologies. Traditional air filters primarily capture large airborne particles but are ineffective against submicrometer aerosols. This study introduces a microwave-enabled catalytic air filtration system using Ti3C2Tx MXene-coated polypropylene filters to enhance air disinfection. With only 0.05 mg·cm-2 of MXene coating, the filter surface temperature rapidly reached 104 °C within 3 s under 125 W microwave irradiation. Such surface heating led to a significantly higher log removal value (LRV) (1.86 ± 0.47) of the MS2 bacteriophage in the synthetic bioaerosol with an initial concentration of 105 PFU·mL-1, compared to 0.24-0.38 achieved by the pristine filter or the MXene-coated filter without microwave irradiation. Additionally, the filter surface exhibited promising self-cleaning behavior, as indicated by the stable viral inactivation and removal efficiency even in high-humidity environments. This innovative air filtration technology shows promising potential for preventing airborne pathogen transmission and protecting public health across diverse environmental conditions.

AB - The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent demand for advanced air disinfection technologies. Traditional air filters primarily capture large airborne particles but are ineffective against submicrometer aerosols. This study introduces a microwave-enabled catalytic air filtration system using Ti3C2Tx MXene-coated polypropylene filters to enhance air disinfection. With only 0.05 mg·cm-2 of MXene coating, the filter surface temperature rapidly reached 104 °C within 3 s under 125 W microwave irradiation. Such surface heating led to a significantly higher log removal value (LRV) (1.86 ± 0.47) of the MS2 bacteriophage in the synthetic bioaerosol with an initial concentration of 105 PFU·mL-1, compared to 0.24-0.38 achieved by the pristine filter or the MXene-coated filter without microwave irradiation. Additionally, the filter surface exhibited promising self-cleaning behavior, as indicated by the stable viral inactivation and removal efficiency even in high-humidity environments. This innovative air filtration technology shows promising potential for preventing airborne pathogen transmission and protecting public health across diverse environmental conditions.

KW - air disinfection

KW - air filtration

KW - microwave

KW - MXene

KW - self-cleaning

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Self-Cleaning Microwave-Responsive MXene-Coated Filtration System for Enhanced Airborne Virus Disinfection

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