Bottom-Up Synthesized All-Thermal-Catalyst Aerogels for Heat-Regenerative Air Filtration

Xiang Ji, Jiayuan Zhao, Sung Mi Jung, Amy I. H. Hrdina, Martin J. Wolf, Xiulin Yang, Geoffrey Vaartstra, Helen Xie, Shao-Xiong Lennon Luo, Ang-yu Lu, Roy E. Welsch, Evelyn N. Wang, Lain-Jong Li, Jing Kong

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Airborne particular matter (PM) pollution is an increasing global issue and alternative sources of filter fibers are now an area of significant focus. Compared with relatively mature hazardous gas treatments, state of the art high-efficiency PM filters still lack thermal decomposition ability for organic PM pollutants, such as soot from coal-fired power plants and waste-combustion incinerators, resulting in frequent replacement, high cost, and second-hand pollution. In this manuscript, we propose a bottom-up synthesis method to make the first all-thermal-catalyst air filter (ATCAF). Self-assembled from ∼50 nm diameter TiO2 fibers, ATCAF could not only capture the combustion-generated PM pollutants with >99.999% efficiency but also catalyze the complete decomposition of the as-captured hydrocarbon pollutants at high temperature. It has the potential of in situ eliminating the PM pollutants from burning of hydrocarbon materials leveraging the burning heat.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)8160-8165
Number of pages6
JournalNano Letters
Volume21
Issue number19
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 20 2021

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Bioengineering
  • General Materials Science
  • General Chemistry
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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