Effect of carbon fiber addition on the performance of MnO2/PET for formaldehyde decomposition at room temperature.

The active sites of MnO2 particles in the slurry is easily covered due to the agglomeration effect. Herein, we added carbon fiber to the slurry, which could disperse MnO2 particles well and expose more active sites. Subsequently, we loaded the slurry containing MnO2 and carbon fiber onto the polyethylene terephthalate (PET)-based non-woven fabric (MnO2/PET-%C) by rolling method. The addition of carbon fiber significantly improved the load firmness of MnO2 on the fabric, while the pressure drop remained unaffected. As-synthesized composites incorporating MnO2 and carbon fibers achieved a low weight loss of < 3.1 % after 180 min of ultrasonic oscillation. It possessed fantastic HCHO removal rate (>99.5 %) and conversion to CO2 (50 %) within 120 min at room temperature, and could be easily regenerated being placed for 5 days. Moreover, after ultrasonic oscillation, the HCHO conversion rate of composites without carbon fiber addition exhibited a significant decrease, whereas that of composites with carbon fiber demonstrated an improvement due to their strong load firmness of MnO2. This research elucidates the pivotal role of carbon fibers in improving the dispersion and loading firmness of MnO2 on fabrics, resulting in efficient oxidation of HCHO at room temperature.