Reusable MoS2-Modified Antibacterial Fabrics with Photothermal Disinfection Properties for Repurposing of Personal Protective Masks

The current pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has seen a widespread use of personal protective equipment, especially face masks. This has created the need to develop better and reusable protective masks with built-in antimicrobial, self-cleaning, and aerosol filtration properties to prevent the transmission of air-borne pathogens such as the coronaviruses. Herein, molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) nanosheets are used to prepare modified polycotton fabrics having excellent antibacterial activity and photothermal properties. Upon sunlight irradiation, the nanosheet-modified fabrics rapidly increased the surface temperature to similar to 77 degrees C, making them ideal for sunlight-mediated self-disinfection. Complete self-disinfection of the nanosheet-modified fabric was achieved within 3 min of irradiation, making the fabrics favorably reusable upon self-disinfection. The nanosheet-modified fabrics maintained the antibacterial efficiency even after 60 washing cycles. Furthermore, the particle filtration efficiency of three-layered surgical masks was found to be significantly improved through incorporation of the MoS2-modified fabric as an additional layer of protective clothing, without compromising the breathability of the masks. The repurposed surgical masks could filter out around 97% of 200 nm particles and 96% of 100 nm particles, thus making them potentially useful for preventing the spread of coronaviruses (120 nm) by trapping them along with antibacterial protection against other airborne pathogens.

Automated summary

The study focuses on utilizing molybdenum disulfide nanosheets to develop highly efficient self-disinfecting masks with antibacterial and photothermal properties. These masks rapidly self-disinfect under sunlight irradiation, maintain excellent antibacterial effects, and can be reused up to 60 times. Additionally, MoS2-modified fabric as an additional layer enhances particle filtration efficiency of surgical masks without compromising breathability.