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Abstract This study focuses on fabrication of aerogel-coated macroporous polyester fabrics for the purposes of filtration of nanometric airborne particles and potential application in facemasks. Syndiotactic polystyrene (sPS) and polyimide (PI) gels that provide respectively majority macropores (diameter > 50 nm) and mesopores (diameter 2 to 50 nm) are coated onto woven polyester fabrics via a dip coating process. The resultant materials are supercritically dried to obtain aerogelcoated fabrics. The results show that sPS is more suitable for the dip coating process. However, evaporation of the solvent during handling of gel-coated fabrics leads to closure of the surface pores that are later recovered via solvent annealing. The resultant aerogel-coated fabrics offer high air permeability (∼10 –10 m 2 ) and high filtration efficiency (> 99.95%) of airborne sodium chloride test particles of size 25 to 150 nm.
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This content will become publicly available on March 1, 2026
Nanoparticle Air Filtration Using MXene-Coated Textiles
Nanoparticles with aerodynamic diameters of less than 100 nm pose serious problems to human health due to their small size and large surface area. Despite continuous progress in materials science to develop air remediation technologies, efficient nanoparticle filtration has appeared to be challenging. This study showcases the great promise of MXene-coated polyester textiles to efficiently filter nanoparticles, achieving a high efficiency of ~90% within the 15–30 nm range. Using alkaline earth metal ions to assist textile coating drastically improves the filter performance by ca. 25%, with the structure–property relationship thoroughly assessed by electron microscopy and X-ray computed tomography. Such techniques confirm metal ions’ crucial role in obtaining fully coated and impregnated textiles, which increases tortuosity and structural features that boost the ultimate filtration efficiency. Our work provides a novel perspective on using MXene textiles for nanoparticle filtration, presenting a viable alternative to produce high-performance air filters for real-world applications.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2216175
- PAR ID:
- 10638498
- Publisher / Repository:
- MDPI Journal of Carbon Research
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- C
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2311-5629
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 13
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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