Nano-dry-salt Deposition on Electret Nonwoven Confers Anticoronaviral Effect while Retaining Aerosol Filtration Performance

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Nearly a year after the discovery of SARS-CoV-2, the spread of COVID-19 is still ongoing strong. Nevertheless, social distancing, hand washing, and wearing masks as non-pharmaceutical interventions have been validated worldwide during the pandemic, and this has allowed some continuation of socioeconomic activities. Consistent wearing of masks can provide a strong barrier against the inflow of airborne coronaviruses into the respiratory system, whereas it can be a fomite of infection via touching of the coronavirus-laden nonwoven material during wear. The issues faced in developing antiviral and exothermic nanomaterial coatings on nonwovens include the need for rapid implementation, scalability, affordability, and biosafety. To resolve these difficulties, we developed a technique of dry nanoparticle deposition of sodium chloride, which is generally regarded as safe, onto surfaces of nonwovens to inactivate coronaviruses collected on the surfaces while retaining filtration performance. We also propose a realizable platform for the integration of the nano-dry-salt (NDS) deposition and conventional nonwoven production for timely application of the NDS deposited surfaces to combat the pandemic.