Currently,
the quest for highly transparent and flexible fibrous
membranes with robust mechanical characteristics, high breathability,
and good filtration performance is rapidly rising because of their
potential use in the fields of electronics, energy, environment, medical,
and health. However, it is still an extremely challenging task to
realize transparent fibrous membranes due to serious surface light
reflection and internal light scattering. Here, we report the design
and development of a simple and effective topological structure to
create porous, breathable, and high visible light transmitting fibrous
membranes (HLTFMs). The resultant HLTFMs exhibit good optical performance
(up to 90% transmittance) and high porosities (>80%). The formation
of such useful structure with high light transmittance has been revealed
by electric field simulation, and the mechanism of fibrous membrane
structure to achieve high light transmittance has been proposed. Moreover,
transparent masks have been prepared to evaluate the filtration performance
and analyze their feasibility to meet requirement of facial recognition
systems. The prepared masks display high transparency (>80%), low
pressure drop (<100 Pa) and high filtration efficiency (>90%).
Furthermore, the person wearing this mask can be successfully identified
by facial recognition systems. Therefore, this work provides an idea
for the development of transparent, breathable, and high-performance
fibrous membranes.