A review on recent trends of antiviral nanoparticles and airborne filters: special insight on COVID-19 virus

Novel corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic in the last 4 months stimulates the international scientific community to search for vaccine of antiviral agents suitable for in activating the virus inside and outside the human body. More than 4 million people globally are infected by the virus and about 300,000 dead cases until this moment. The ventilation and airborne filters are also investigated aiming to develop an efficient antiviral filtration technology. Human secretion of the infected person as nasal or saliva droplets goes as airborne and distributes the virus everywhere around the person. N95 and N98 filters are the must use filters for capturing particles of sizes around 300 nm. The average size of the novel corona virus (COVID-19) is 100 nm and there is no standard or special filter suitable for this virus. The nanoparticle-coated airborne filter is a suitable technique in this regard. While the efficiency of this type of filters still needs to be enhanced, new developed nanofiber filters are proposed. Most recently, the charged nanofiber filters of sizes below 100 nm are developed and provide an efficient viral filtration and inactivation. The efficiency of filter must be kept at accepted level without increasing the pressure drop. The present review outlines the most efficient antiviral nanoparticles including the recent functional nanoparticles. The filtration theory, filtration modeling, filter testing, and different types of filter with special concentration on the charged nanofiber filter were discussed. The charged nanofiber filter able to capture novel corona virus (COVID-19) with 94% efficiency and a pressure drop less than 20 MPa.