Appliances installed in cars or buildings, including air conditioners and air cleansers, have filters designed to filter out airborne pollutants. The air filters, however, can themselves become a hotbed of harmful bacteria, where the deposited microorganisms can survive and multiply, posing a significant health risk.

To deal with this problem, a research team at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, led by Dr. Woo Kyoung-ja, and working alongside a Yonsei University mechanical engineering team led by Professor Hwang Jung-ho, has developed a new air filter system that is coated with “silver nanoparticles.”


The results were recently published on September 17 in the Journal of Materials Chemistry, an international science journal issued by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). The piece is titled, “Prompt and synergistic antibacterial activity of silver nanoparticle-decorated silica hybrid particles on air filtration.”

To make the new air filter system, silver "seeds" 1-2 nanometers (nm) in size were grown to 30 nm, and then the silver particles were coated onto an air filtration unit. The research team examined the antibacterial efficiency of the filter system using two types of bacteria: Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus epidermidis.

They found that the silver nanoparticles showed prompt antibacterial activity upon contact, killing the bugs as if the particles bit them off with teeth.


“The new breakthrough air filter system coated with nanoparticles will be helpful in improving our heath and the quality of life, as it can kill bacteria upon contact, even highly-resistant pathogenic bacteria, such as 'super bacteria,'” said a member of the research team.

By Sohn JiAe
Korea.net Staff Writer
jiae5853@korea.kr