Ag-decorated electrospun polymer/GO fibrous membranes for simultaneous bacterial filtration and termination

Bacteria in air harm the human body. Therefore, developing novel materials capable of simultaneously filtering and terminating bacteria is highly desirable. However, the filtration and inhibition performance of existing filters remain far from optimal. In this study, we combine the electrospinning technique with an in situ reduction approach to fabricate electrospun composite fibrous membranes for simultaneous bacterial filtration and termination. The results show that composite membranes with a homogenously fibrous morphology are successfully prepared. Furthermore, the dual antibacterial agents silver nanoparticles (Ag) and graphene oxide nanosheets (GO) are uniformly encapsulated within the fibers. The tensile strength and elastic modulus of the electrospun composite membranes reach 1.04 and 10.23 MPa, respectively. In addition, the results show that the composite membranes exhibit excellent interception efficiency of over 99.9 % against the gram-positive bacteria S. aureus. The electrospun composite membranes also exhibit high antibacterial activity against E. coli, S. aureus, K. pneumoniae, C. albicans, and B. subtilis, achieving antibacterial efficiency of over 99.99 %. Electrospun composite membranes with bacterial filtration and termination properties may have great potential for use in personal protective equipment and indoor and outdoor air purification.