Morphology engineering of protein fabrics for advanced and sustainable filtration

The high removal efficiency, low flow resistance, high filtration capacity of pollutants and the capability of removing different types of pollutants are critical for advanced air-filters. However, it has been very challenging to simultaneously realize these performances for traditional filtering materials. Herein, we report a study on the development of a new strategy for the fabrication of multi-functional protein fabrics with novel ribbon morphology and cotton-candy-like structures to address the above challenges. In particular, a metastable solution of zein protein in a solvent mixture is proposed for the first time to fabricate the ribbon-like fibres with self-curving behaviour. This self-curved zein fabric has multiple significant contributions to filtration. Firstly, the ribbon morphology notably enhances the trapping capability for sub-micron particulate pollutants in particular. Secondly, the self-curving feature of the fibres generates cotton-candy-like loose structures and elastic properties for the fabric, which significantly reduces the flow resistance. As a result, the filtration performances have been simultaneously improved, including enhanced capture efficiency, filtration capacity and stability of air pressure drop, as well as the reduced airflow resistance, as compared with traditional fabrics with rod-shaped fibres. This study does not only provide a new electrospinning strategy for the fabrication of functional ribbon-like fibres but also presents guidelines for the design of advanced fabrics for various filtration applications.

高去除效率，低流阻，污染物的高过滤能力以及去除不同类型污染物的能力对于高级空气过滤器至关重要。然而，同时实现传统过滤材料的这些性能是非常具有挑战性的。在这里，我们报告了一项新的战略，以开发具有新型的带状形态和棉花糖样结构的多功能蛋白质织物，以解决上述挑战的研究。特别地，首次提出了玉米醇溶蛋白在溶剂混合物中的亚稳态溶液，以制造具有自弯曲行为的带状纤维。这种自弯曲的玉米蛋白织物对过滤具有多种重要作用。首先，带状形态显着增强了对亚微米颗粒污染物的捕获能力。其次，纤维的自弯曲特征产生了类似棉花糖的松散结构和织物的弹性，这大大降低了流动阻力。结果，与具有棒状纤维的传统织物相比，同时提高了过滤性能，包括提高的捕集效率，过滤能力和气压下降的稳定性，以及降低的气流阻力。这项研究不仅为功能性带状纤维的制备提供了新的静电纺丝策略，而且为各种过滤应用的高级织物设计提供了新的思路。

Published: 2018

Journal ：Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Impact Factor：11.545

Paper link:

https://pubs.rsc.org/no/content/articlelanding/2018/ta/c8ta08717b/unauth#!divAbstract