Preparation of antibacterial antiviral nanofiber and its application in durable and self-cleaning personal protective equipment

Infectious diseases caused by bacterial and viral transmission have brought a significant burden on public health security. Personal protective equipment (PPE) is vital in impeding their spread and protecting our safety. However, the existing PPE can only play a certain filtering role and cannot clean itself. Long-term wearing will lead to the accumulation of bacteria and viruses, there is a certain risk, and frequent replacement has caused a lot of white pollution. Here, we prepared a biocompatible polyacrylonitrile/thermoplastic polyurethane-polytetrahydropyrimidine (PAN/TPU-PTHP, PT-P) nanofiber membrane with a three-dimensional network structure by electrospinning, which has good air permeability and filtration performance. In addition, the excellent encapsulation effect of nanofibers ensures the sustained release of antibacterial and antiviral PTHP, and the good mechanical properties ensure its long-term use without damage. When the nanofiber membrane is used as the intermediate filter layer of mask, good air permeability, filtration efficiency, mechanical properties, and sustained drug release give it a service life of more than 5 days (an ordinary mask is only 4–7 h), which dramatically reduces environmental pollution. This is of great significance in the research and application of the next generation of durable and self-cleaning personal protective equipment.