Surface active functional groups enhanced PET non-woven fabric for the filtering of harmful substances in smoke

Harmful components in cigarette smoke, such as nicotine, tar, and organic particulate matter, are the primary culprits behind lung diseases. While conventional filter materials based on cellulose, carbon, and molecular sieves exhibit commendable filtration capabilities, their high cost restricts their widespread applications. Based on this, the authors aim to prepare PET-based filter materials with good adsorption properties through a simple surface functionalisation strategy. The adsorption performance of the PET-based non-woven fabric was enhanced by the introduction of sodium alginate (SA). The gas adsorption experiments results reveal that SA-modified PET (SA-PET) exhibits significantly improved filtration efficiency for nicotine, tar, and total particulate matter—increasing by 27.1%, 26.2%, and 21.3%, respectively. Moreover, SA-PET exhibits more odour control ability than traditional activated carbon-based filter materials. These results prove that surface-functionalised SA-PET has better filtration performance for harmful substances in smoke and provides a new strategy for the design of high-performance filtration materials.