Development of a new aerosol cold spraying technology to modify porous filter materials by incorporating Cu nanoparticles for virus removal.

Virus removal can be successfully achieved based on an electrostatic adsorption mechanism of copper modified porous filter materials. The key requirement for this process is to develop filter materials that can be produced by low-cost technologies and are suitable in large-scale production for real applications. We offer a new aerosol cold spraying technology allowing the incorporation of Cu nanoparticles and Carbon Nanotubes into the filtering material. At present time, there is an intensive research in antibacterial material containing various natural and inorganic substances such as tea extraction, chitosan, copper, zinc, etc. Among them, silver, copper nanoparticles or ions have long been known to have powerful antibacterial activity. Aerosol cold spraying-based incorporation of Copper submicro- and nanoparticles into two types of filtering materials was performed, including: i) a commercially available activated-carbon-loaded nonwoven filter, and ii) a stainless steel mesh supported porous sheet of 3mm thickness. For this purpose, a new aerosol cold spraying device was designed, built and tried. Using a porous support plate or ring shaped material ensures prolonged contact time of contaminated air with the CNT-Cu nanoparticles-imbedded surface. The Cu ion release as the main criterion of virus killing activity was evaluated by atomic absorption spectroscopy.