To develop high-performance air filters with integrated antimicrobial functionality, this study employed electrospinning to fabricate polysulfone (PSF)-based filters incorporating two efficient photocatalysts: Ph-C≡C-Cu and 4-F-Ph-C≡C-Cu. The resulting composite materials were systematically evaluated for their antibacterial and particulate filtration properties. Among them, the 2% 4-F-Ph-C≡C-Cu@PSF filter exhibited an antibacterial rate of 95.2% against Gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus, while the 2.5% Ph-C≡C-Cu@PSF filter showed an antibacterial rate of 86.6% against Gram-negative Escherichia coli, which also achieved a high PM 2.5 filtration efficiency of 97.5%. In terms of the balance between filtration and breathability, the 1% 4-F-Ph-C≡C-Cu@PSF filter showed the best quality factor (0.05). Mechanistic investigation revealed that the superior antibacterial activity of 4-F-Ph-C≡C-Cu composites is primarily attributable to their enhanced superhydrophobicity. This work successfully prepared dual-functional filters via electrospinning, presenting a promising strategy for developing advanced materials for antimicrobial air filtration applications.
Mu et al. (2026) studied this question.