Ball milling enhances the antiviral activity of inexpensive inorganic materials
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, developing surfaces that can inactivate viruses upon contact has become an important goal in public health care. Ideally, such surfaces would work on their own without requiring chemical disinfectants, so they could offer consistent protection in hospitals, public transportation and other shared spaces. This has driven scientists worldwide to search for durable…
Scientists have found a way to boost the antiviral properties of inexpensive inorganic materials through a simple ball milling process. Researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology studied how grinding complex manganese oxides with ethanol in a ball mill could enhance their ability to neutralize viruses. The study, published in RSC Mechanochemistry, explored four manganese oxide materials - ZnMn2O4, CuMn2O4, YMnO3, and BiMn2O5 - and found that milling significantly improved antiviral activity.
The copper-containing oxide, CuMn2O4, showed an extraordinary 5,000-fold increase in antiviral activity per unit surface area compared to untreated samples. This enhancement was attributed to the creation of new chemically reactive spots on the particles, known as Lewis acid sites, which bind to viral structures and enable more efficient oxidation of viral surfaces.
Milling also formed surface ethoxy groups in CuMn2O4, further boosting its antiviral capabilities. The researchers concluded that ball milling in ethanol is an effective method for significantly enhancing the antiviral performance of Mn-based complex oxides, presenting a new strategy for developing low-cost, high-performance inorganic antiviral materials.
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