Fluorinated Graphene-Coated N95 Respirators for Enhanced Protection Against Viral Accumulation and Transmission.

Highly contagious respiratory infection diseases such as COVID-19 can be transmitted by inhaling virus laden liquid droplets and short-range aerosols, released by an infected person. Particularly, in hospitals, spraying of the respiratory droplets containing pathogens from the conjunctiva or mucus of a susceptible person plays a key role in transferring the infectious diseases. N95 filtering respirators are a critical personal protective equipment. However, due to concerns over the virus accumulation on the N95 respirators, there is an urgent need to make the N95 respirators less contaminated. To address this critical issue, we develop a one-step spray coating approach to coat the fluorinated graphene (FG) nanosheet onto the N95 respirators. The synergistic effect of FG nanosheet with a low surface energy and the increased surface roughness by FG on the respirator's surface makes it superhydrophobic. For respiratory droplets like saliva and mucus, the FG coated respirators also show excellent superhydrophobicity. Furthermore, the ability against virus accumulation on the FG coated respirators is tested by using the mucus droplets laden with SARS-CoV-2. The results show that FG coated respirators largely increase the virus repel efficiency even under multiple contacts and effectively reduce the virus accumulation.