Infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, measles, and chickenpox are all airborne and prevention is a top priority, and now scientists have developed new spray coatings based on standard air purifiers and proposed solutions that can eliminate infectious bacteria in the air.
Professionals from the IMDEA Materials Institute in Spain have teamed up with Venfilter, a Spanish air purifier manufacturer, to work on a new coating that hopes to improve the antimicrobial capabilities of air purifiers on the market. Experimenting with silver (Ag2O), copper (CuO) and zinc (ZNO) oxides, they used each compound to create a spray containing compound nanoparticles, which were then sprayed onto the filter screen.
They found that both the silver oxide spray and the copper oxide spray had more than 99% antiviral activity, and that the silver oxide spray completely prevented the growth of bacterial spores within 24 hours of the study, and that the spray did not interfere with the general removal of suspended particles by air purifiers.
（source：imdea materials institute）
In this study, the team also specifically targeted a variety of airborne pathogens, especially Streptococcus pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Study author Mónica Echeverry-Rendón said that Streptococcus pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are considered to be the top five bacterial pathogens in the world, with Streptococcus pneumoniae being the main cause of community-based bacterial pneumonia, acute otitis media media in children, and non-epidemic meningitis, while Pseudomonas aeruginosa is usually associated with chronic infection exacerbations in patients with cystic fibrosis and bronchiectasis.
According to Echeverry-Rendón, the team has conducted some initial evaluations of spraying as a low-cost, simple, and versatile air purification manufacturing process for commercial use, but there is still a long way to go before it can be commercialized. In the future, different aspects need to be considered and more tests will be carried out, and a real-size filtration prototype will actually be used with a sealed frame.
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