Recently, the interest in removing contagious viruses from indoor air using ventilation and air filtration systems is increasing rapidly because people spend most of the day indoors. The application of antiviral air filters in air conditioning and purification systems may be an alternative to achieving back-to-normal from the current pandemic because coronavirus infections are ongoing despite the vaccination of a considerable number of people worldwide. On the other hand, the development of an effective platform to regenerate the antiviral function of air filters during use as well as safe abrogation of used filters containing infectious viruses is a challenging task, because an on-demand safe-by-design manufacture system is essential for in-place antiviral coatings, but it has been rarely investigated. With these considerations, an electrically operable dispenser was prepared for decorating continuous ultrafine Fe–Zn, Fe–Ag, or Fe–Cu particles (&lt;5 nm) onto SiO2 nanobeads (ca. 130 nm) to form nanobulges (i.e., nanoroughness for engaging coronavirus spikes) in the aerosol state for 3 min direct deposition on the air filter surfaces. The resulting nanobulges were exposed to human coronaviruses (HCoV; surrogates of SARS-CoV-2) to assess antiviral function. The results were compared with similar-sized individual Zn, Ag, and Cu particles. The nanobulges exhibited comparable antiviral activity to Zn, Ag, and Cu particles while retaining biosafety in both in vitro and in vivo models because of the significantly smaller metallic fractions. This suggests that the bimetallic bulge structures generate reactive oxygen species and Fenton-mediated hydroxyl radicals for inactivating HCoV.

Plug-in aero-manufacture of nanobulges for an in-place anticoronaviral on air filters

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