The current global
pandemic of new coronary pneumonia clearly reveals
the importance of developing highly efficient filtration and fast
germicidal performance of multifunctional air filters. In this study,
a novel air filter with a controllable morphology based on the rod-like
to flower-like zinc oxide/graphene-based photocatalytic composite
particles loaded on glass microfiber was prepared by one-step microwave
rapid synthesis. The multifunctional air filter shows the following
special functions: the 10 mg·L
–1
organic pollutant
solution RhB was completely degraded within 2 h under a 500 W xenon
lamp, and also 99% of
Escherichia coli
and
Staphylococcus aureus
were inactivated
under a 60 W light-emitting diode lamp. Furthermore, after introducing
the controllable morphology zinc oxide/graphene-based photocatalytic
composite particles, the filtration efficiency of the multifunctional
air filter was also kept at the same level (99.8%) as the one without
any addition, indicating no loss of high-efficiency filtration while
obtaining the rapid bactericidal function. The rapid antibacterial
principle of the multifunctional air filter has also been proposed
through the UV–vis spectroscopies, photoluminescence, and electron-spin
resonance spectrum. The zinc oxide/graphene-based photocatalytic composite
particles tightly coated on the glass microfiber surface could increase
the active sites by changing the morphology of zinc oxide and, in
the meantime, promote the separation of zinc oxide photo-generated
electron–hole pairs to improve the rapid sterilization ability
of the multifunctional air filters. In addition, an empirical formula
to evaluate the relationship between the composition, viscosity, and
viscosity modulus of glass microfiber was proposed by testing the
viscosity of glass microfiber composed of 14 different compositions
at 1300 and 1400 °C, which can be used as a criterion to evaluate
the production technology of glass microfiber filters.