Welcome to my nanofilters page. This is a basic explanation of what a nanofilter is and what companies are producing them.
UC Davis Nanofilters
Kyoung-Yong Chun and Pieter Stroeve have developed a new type nanofilter that uses a thin polycarbonate membrane with pores less than 10 nanometers in size. The pores are lined with gold and thiol molecules, and by adjusting the pH, they can adjust the size of the pores. This could be used to develop micro-fluidic devices or new controlled drug release mechanisms.
See the news article on http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/
Pieter Stroeve's website: http://www.chms.ucdavis.edu/faculty/stroeve/
Queensland University Nanofilters
Professor Huaiyong Zhu of the QUT's School of Physical and Chemical Sciences is researching ceramic nanofilters that could remove viruses from water, air and blood.
Huaiyong Zhu's website - http://www.sci.qut.edu.au/profiles/zhu/
MIT Technology Review published an article on nanofilters in November 2004 - http://www.technologyreview.com/NanoTech/13875
Environmental Science & Engineering magazine has an article from September 2002 about nanofilters being used to convert river water into safe drinking water. - http://www.esemag.com/0902/nanofilter.html
3M N95 Masks
3M US: Health Care Particulate Respirator and Surgical Mask - http://www.3m.com/product/information/Health-Care-N95-Respirator-Surgical-Mask.html
Buy a 3M N95 Surgical Mask on Amazon.com
Commercial Nanofilters
The current industry standard for filtration devices is 0.3 microns, or 300 nanometers. This is considered adequate filtration because it can prevent the passing of water molecules, which are the usual transporters of infectious diseases. However, many of the deadliest viruses are much smaller than 300 nm, and can pass through these filters.
The next generation nanofilters that are being produced provide filtration of particulate sizes greater than .027 microns, or 27 nanometers, over 10 times smaller than the particles that pass through current filters.
Scale: 1 pixel = 1 nanometer
The large circle represents current filtration sizes of .3 microns (300 nm).
The smaller circle shows the size of a .027 micron (27 nm) nanofilter.
Examples of viruses that can pass through current filtration devices but not nanofilters are: Hepatitis B, HIV, Ebola, Hanta, Influenza A/B/C, and SARS. It seems inevitable that surgical masks, hospital air filters, and other critical filtration devices will switch to this technology.
The major producer of nanofilters is Emergency Filtration Products, with their patented "2H Filtration Technology". Their "NanoMask" could become the new hospital standard, and they have already conducted testing with the military concerning the outfit of tanks, vehicles, and buildings with the air filtration technology.
Emergency Filtration products has ramped up their production of the nanofilters and nanomasks due to surging demand related to the bird flu scare.
Check out my page on nanomasks.
Buy a Nanomask on Amazon.com