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  • WHERE I WORK

Putting the charge back into face-mask filters

Peter Tsai, inventor of the electrostatically charged filter used in face masks, emerges from retirement to help boost filter production and reuse.
  1. Amber Dance

    1. Amber Dance is a freelance writer in Los Angeles, California.

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Peter Tsai at the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility’s melt-blown material production line.

Peter Tsai is a materials scientist in Knoxville, Tennessee. Credit: Carlos Jones/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

I spent my career working with microfibres, which have a diameter of 2 micrometres or so. Tangled mats of microfibres made of polypropylene are good materials for air filters — such as those in N95 respirators. They filter at least 95% of airborne particles and meet US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health standards for medical use. In 1992, I invented a way to charge those filters by passing them through a device that produces static electricity — much like when you rub a balloon on your hair, but it’s permanent. The electrostatic charge makes the filters ten times better than uncharged filters at blocking viruses and other particles.

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Nature 585, 316 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02550-8

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