Fabrics Attached with Highly Efficient Aggregation-Induced Emission Photosensitizer: Toward Self-Antiviral Personal Protective Equipment

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is vital for the prevention and control of SARS-CoV-2. However, conventional PPEs lack virucidal capabilities and arbitrarily discarding used PPEs may cause a high risk for cross-contamination and environmental pollution. Recently reported photothermal or photodynamic-mediated self-sterilizing masks show bactericidal-virucidal abilities but have some inherent disadvantages, such as generating unbearable heat during the photothermal process or requiring additional ultraviolet light irradiation to inactivate pathogens, which limit their practical applications. Here, we report the fabrication of a series of fabrics (derived from various PPEs) with real-time self-antiviral capabilities, on the basis of a highly efficient aggregation-induced emission photosensitizer (namely, ASCP-TPA). ASCP-TPA possesses facile synthesis, excellent biocompatibility, and extremely high reactive oxygen species generation capacity, which significantly outperforms the traditional photosensitizers. Meanwhile, the ASCP-TPA-attached fabrics (ATaFs) show tremendous photodynamic inactivation effects against MHV-A59, a surrogate coronavirus of SARS-CoV-2. Upon ultralow-power white light irradiation (3.0 mW cm(-2)), >99.999% virions (5 log) on the ATaFs are eliminated within 10 min. Such ultralow-power requirement and rapid virus-killing ability enable ATaFs-based PPEs to provide real-time protection for the wearers under indoor light irradiation. ATaFs' virucidal abilities are retained after 100 washings or continuous exposure to office light for 2 weeks, which offers the benefits of reusability and long-term usability. Furthermore, ATaFs show no toxicity to normal skin, even upon continuous high-power light illumination. This self-antiviral ATaFs-based strategy may also be applied to fight against other airborne pathogens and holds huge potential to alleviate global PPE supply shortages.

Automated summary

This study introduces a fabric manufacturing method based on a highly efficient aggregation-induced emission photosensitizer (ASCP-TPA) for real-time self-antiviral capabilities. The fabrics show significant photodynamic inactivation effects against a surrogate coronavirus MHV-A59, with >99.999% virions eliminated within 10 minutes under ultralow-power white light irradiation. These self-antiviral fabrics offer reusability, long-term usability, and no toxicity to normal skin, making them a promising solution to global PPE supply shortages.