@article{35424be6fa95417e8bab1093d9c350ec,
title = "On-Mask Chemical Modulation of Respiratory Droplets",
abstract = "Mask wearing has become a new norm in many parts of the world in the COVID-19 pandemic. There has been much interest in enhanced masks that can better protect the wearers. However, a mask or face covering is much more effective in protecting others because it can block and reroute a large portion of the virus-laden respiratory droplets from symptomatic or asymptomatic infected wearers. Here, we propose an on-mask chemical modulation strategy to enhance this function by making the escaped droplets less infectious. As a proof of concept, antipathogen agents (e.g., mineral acid and copper salt) preloaded on nonwoven fabrics are shown to transfer to and are concentrated in escaped droplets to the level capable of deactivating pathogens. We hope that this approach leads to additional work, which, if eventually adopted, can help to cut down the sources of transmission and strengthen the public health response to control and mitigate the outbreak of infectious respiratory diseases.",
keywords = "COVID-19, MAP4: Demonstrate, chemical modulation, colorimetric imaging, fluorometric imaging, infectious diseases, mask, nonwoven fabrics, polyaniline, public health, respiratory droplets",
author = "Haiyue Huang and Hun Park and Yihan Liu and Jiaxing Huang",
note = "Funding Information: The work is mainly supported by a National Science Foundation (RAPID DMR-2026944 managed by SSMC subdivision). H.H. thanks the Ryan Fellowship and the Northwestern University International Institute for Nanotechnology for encouragement. Y.L. thanks his parents for funding his study at Northwestern University. Additional sources of support include Dean's support from the McCormick School of Engineering to support J.H. and an earlier gift donation to J.H.'s lab, and personal donations from some of the authors in purchasing small supplies and consumables to expedite the work. The work made use of the IMSERC and the Keck-II facility of the NUANCE Center at Northwestern University, which has received support from the NSF (CHE-1048773); Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental Resource (NSF ECCS-1542205); the MRSEC program (NSF DMR-1720139) at the Materials Research Center; the Keck Foundation; the State of Illinois and International Institute for Nanotechnology. The authors also thank Profs. L. Jiang (Beijing), Q. Cheng (Beijing), and W. Zhang (Nanjing), and Ms. X. Xiao (Chicago) for their gifts of various types of masks and supplies, some of which were used to better equip the authors to perform on-site research during the period of stay-home order of the State of Illinois, and Dr. M. Kadir, Dr. Z. Yu, L. Prestowitz, L.J. Bichelmeir, S.G. Fine, Mr. J. Suerth (Feynlab), and many others for helpful discussions and encouragement. J.H. conceptualized the work and oversaw the research. H.H. and H.P. designed the experiments, developed the colorimetric and fluorometric detection methods, and drafted the manuscript. H.H. and Y.L. designed the image-processing protocol; Y.L. wrote the codes to extract and analyze data from the optical microscopy images. Northwestern University has filed a patent application including discoveries made in this work. Funding Information: The work is mainly supported by a National Science Foundation ( RAPID DMR-2026944 managed by SSMC subdivision). H.H. thanks the Ryan Fellowship and the Northwestern University International Institute for Nanotechnology for encouragement. Y.L. thanks his parents for funding his study at Northwestern University . Additional sources of support include Dean's support from the McCormick School of Engineering to support J.H. and an earlier gift donation to J.H.'s lab, and personal donations from some of the authors in purchasing small supplies and consumables to expedite the work. The work made use of the IMSERC and the Keck-II facility of the NUANCE Center at Northwestern University, which has received support from the NSF ( CHE-1048773 ); Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental Resource (NSF ECCS-1542205); the MRSEC program ( NSF DMR-1720139 ) at the Materials Research Center; the Keck Foundation ; the State of Illinois and International Institute for Nanotechnology . The authors also thank Profs. L. Jiang (Beijing), Q. Cheng (Beijing), and W. Zhang (Nanjing), and Ms. X. Xiao (Chicago) for their gifts of various types of masks and supplies, some of which were used to better equip the authors to perform on-site research during the period of stay-home order of the State of Illinois, and Dr. M. Kadir, Dr. Z. Yu, L. Prestowitz, L.J. Bichelmeir, S.G. Fine, Mr. J. Suerth (Feynlab), and many others for helpful discussions and encouragement. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 Elsevier Inc.",
year = "2020",
month = nov,
day = "4",
doi = "10.1016/j.matt.2020.10.012",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "3",
pages = "1791--1810",
journal = "Matter",
issn = "2590-2393",
number = "5",
}
