IIT Delhi researchers team develop modified fabric which adsorbs air pollutants

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New Delhi: A team of researchers in Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi (IIT-D) have made a new pollution-free cotton fabric that can absorb harmful pollutants present in the air. The discovery has been named as ZIF-8 and ZIF-67, it is claimed to be able to absorb harmful air pollutants like benzene, hydrogen chloride that can cause cancer and birth defects. One of these clothes is white in colour and the other one is violet.

Compared to ordinary cotton fabric, it has the capacity to absorb 400-600% more volatile organic compounds like carbon oxides, sulphur oxides, etc. These toxic air pollutants can cause asthma or eye, throat irritations if a person is exposed to it for longer period of time.

Considering the pollution emission that keeps increasing with time, the team led by Professor Ashwini K. Agrawal, Professor Manjeet Jassal and Professor Saswata Bhattacharya of IIT Delhi, has developed such an incredible product that might come as a boon for our future generation.

These durable cotton fabric are modified with Zeolite Imidazolate Framework (ZIF), which is a metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). It is accounted to be able to withstand harsh washing conditions and is suitable for under the weather conditions in India.

Professor Agrawal mentioned in the press release,“In this study, we have shown the functionalisation of cotton fabric by ZIF MOFs (ZIF-8 and ZIF-67) using a rapid, facile, eco-friendly, and scalable approach. The ZIF functionalised textiles possess a huge potential for applications as protective garments and in controlling indoor air pollution.”

He further added to his statement that these cotton fabrics can be used in homes, offices, cars, theatres, at airplanes, and other transport vehicles for controlling the gaseous pollutants, which are difficult to filter out.

This invention will be beneficial in controlling indoor air pollution if textile industries shows potential in making protective garments out of it.

The team also said that the fabric can be reused without any decrease in their adsorption capacity for several cycles, and could be easily regenerated by heating the fabrics at 120 degrees Celsius.

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