Cationic Nanocellulose as Promising Candidate for Filtration Material of COVID-19: A Perspective

Abstract

The threat of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is worrying as millions of people suffered from this outbreak. The COVID-19 can be airborne spreaded by attaching to human nasal or saliva secretion of an infected person or suspended fine particulates in the air. Therefore, in order to minimize the risks associated with this pandemic, an efficient, robust and affordable air‐borne virus removal filters are highly demanded for prevention of spreading viruses in hospitals, transportation hubs, schools, and/or other venues with high human turn‐over. Respirators such as N95, N99 and N100 as well as surgical masks have been widely used. To date, there is no filter standards or special filter technologies tailored for effectively adsorbing the airborne viruses. Studies had shown the electrostatic fibers were capable to entrap the negatively charged viruses including COVID-19. Researchers believed that the positive surface charge of filtration material is an important key to efficiently adsorb the negatively charged viruses. Nanocellulose has emerged as a new class of biobased material with promising potential application in the filtration of viruses. Nanocellulose is uniform in diameter and has excellent nanofibrillar morphology. To the best of our knowledge, further studies are necessary to determine the efficiency of cationic nanocellulose as filtration material of COVID-19.