ABSTRACT Rapid‐sterilization high‐efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters are vital for public health and high‐purity manufacturing, but their practical implementation is constrained by the inherently poor compatibility between antimicrobials and conventional adhesive systems, which leads to non‐uniform coatings and limited antimicrobial efficiency. Here, we report a scalable and industry‐ready strategy that leverages the intrinsic compatibility of blocked isocyanates with cationic antimicrobials, together with their water‐triggered conversion into a robust polyurea network, to engineer a tri‐functional HEPA filter (BPA filter) through a standard glass‐fiber sizing process. This approach enables highly uniform deposition of cationic antimicrobials on glass fibers, while the in situ formed dense hydrogen‐bonded polyurea network provides strong cohesion with the antimicrobials and reinforced interfacial adhesion to the fiber substance. As a result, the BPA filters exhibit exceptional mechanical strength that meets the GB/T 13554 standard, together with synergistic electrostatic microbial capture and rapid contact‐killing capabilities for achieving four‐fold higher microbial capture than commercial HEPA filters and 100% bactericidal and fungicidal activity within 2 h and 6 h, respectively. Notably, the adhesive platform is compatible with a series of cationic antimicrobials and maintains its performance under radiation‐rich environments, underscoring its strong potential for next‐generation air‐purification applications in medical and aerospace settings.
Xiong et al. (Mon,) studied this question.