Characteristics of Adsorption and Inactivation of Viruses by Catalyst Materials

SARS ( severe acute respiratory syndrome) is a severe problem for people all over the world, and it is extremely urgent to control the spread of SARS. The purpose of this work is to evaluate and find effective catalyst(s), which can adsorb, decompose and inactivate viruses. In this study, nucleic acid and the parainfluenza virus, which is very similar to SARS, were selected as the probe and model object. Among the 93 newly synthesized catalysts evaluated using capillary electrophoretic and biochemical methods, two of them were found to be highly effective for killing the virus and will be useful for protection against the SARS infection.