Indoor air pollutants include infectious droplets and aerosols, particulate matters (PMs), and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that affect the occupants’ health and well-being. Infectious droplets and aerosols are an important vector for the spread of respiratory diseases, while PMs and VOCs cause airway inflammation and impair lung function, increasing the illness’s severity. Respiratory diseases are responsible for some of the most devastating epidemics and pandemics. In less than a year, the COVID-19 pandemic claims more than a million lives, infecting close to 40 million people, and paralyzes the world economy. Early in the pandemic, the Asia Development Bank estimates the economic cost of COVID-19 to range from US $2 to US $4.1 trillion. The latest estimate from the World Economic Forum puts the global cost closer to between US$8.1 and US$15.8 trillion. There is an urgency to develop new and efficient technologies to mitigate the spread of infectious respiratory diseases such as COVID-19 and the adverse health impact of poor air quality.  Electrospun ceria with foreign substituted atoms has distorted lattice giving greater lattice oxygen mobility, oxygen storage capacity, and reducibility, which are essential for preparing active catalysts capable of generating reactive oxygen species at low temperature for oxidative disinfection of microorganisms and oxidations of organic pollutants. A versatile x-y-z electrospinning equipment was built capable of far-field electrospinning and near-field writing and 3D printing of ceria nanofibers. Nanofiber mesh of precise dimensions were prepared to investigate the oxidative transformation of the cerium precursor to cerium oxides to establish its formation mechanism. Subsequent bactericidal study confirms its efficacy against <i>S. aureus </i>and <i>E. coli</i> and methanol oxidation carried out near ambient temperatures indicate its reactivity for VOC oxidation.

Electrospun ceria for air disinfection and purification

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