Efficient Interception of Particle Matters by a Low-Pressure-Drop Aerogel with a Fluffy 3D Hierarchically Fibrous Framework of Collagen Fibers Integrated with Metal–Organic Frameworks

Size-sieving interception of particulate matter (PM) at low pressure drops remains a challenging issue since the accumulation of PMs inevitably blocks the size-sieving channels and causes serious contamination. Herein, we reported a low-pressure-drop aerogel featured with a fluffy 3D hierarchically fibrous framework, which was fabricated by the self-assembly of collagen fibers with the insitu growth of zeolite imidazolate framework (ZIF-8) on surface. For the as-prepared CFs@ZIF-8 composite aerogel, ZIF-8 worked as size-sieving site to guarantee exceptional interception efficiency to PMs, and notably, the fluffy 3D hierarchically fibrous framework served as efficient pathway to enable directional flow of the airstream at low pressure drop. As demonstrated, the high-performance interceptions to different PMs were accomplished, with the interception efficiency of 99.53%, 99.72%, 99.77%, 99.89%, 99.96% and 99.93% for PM0.3, PM0.5, PM1.0, PM2.5, PM5.0 and PM10 at the low pressure drop of 40 Pa. A long-term interception capability was also manifested.