School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University , Pullman, Washington 99164, United States.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2016 Aug 10;8(31):20023-31. doi: 10.1021/acsami.6b05339. Epub 2016 Jul 29.
Proteins are well-known by their numerous active functional groups along the polypeptide chain. The variety of functional groups of proteins provides a great potential for proteins to interact with airborne pollutants with varying surface properties. However, to our knowledge, a successful demonstration of this potential has not been reported before. In this work, soy protein, a type of abundant plant protein, has been employed for the first time to fabricate multifunctional air-filtration materials. To take advantage of the functional groups of soy protein for air filtration, the soy protein was first well denatured to unfold the polypeptide chains and then fabricated into nanofibers with the help of poly(vinyl alcohol). It was found that the resultant nanofabrics showed high filtration efficiency not only for airborne particulates with a broad range of size but also for various toxic gaseous chemicals (e.g., formaldehyde and carbon monoxide), a capability that has not been realized by conventional air-filtering materials. This study indicates that protein-based nanofabrics are promising nanomaterials for multifunctional air-filtration applications.
蛋白质因其沿多肽链的众多活性功能基团而广为人知。蛋白质的各种功能基团为其与具有不同表面性质的空气污染物相互作用提供了巨大的潜力。然而，据我们所知，这一潜力尚未得到成功证实。在这项工作中，首次采用大豆蛋白（一种丰富的植物蛋白）来制备多功能空气过滤材料。为了利用大豆蛋白的功能基团进行空气过滤，首先将大豆蛋白充分变性以展开多肽链，然后在聚乙烯醇的帮助下将其制成纳米纤维。研究发现，所得纳米纤维不仅对各种尺寸的空气颗粒物具有高过滤效率，而且对各种有毒气态化学物质（如甲醛和一氧化碳）也具有这种能力，而这是传统空气过滤材料所无法实现的。本研究表明，基于蛋白质的纳米纤维是多功能空气过滤应用的有前途的纳米材料。
