Eco-Friendly Poly(Vinyl Alcohol) Nanofiber-Based Air Filter for Effectively Capturing Particulate Matter

Abstract

Due to the increasing use of polypropylene-based nonwoven dust masks and air filters, environmental problems that occur due to the plastic pollution resulting from the disposal of these materials have also increased. Hence, an eco-friendly air filter based on PVA nanofibers (NFs) was fabricated by electrospinning on a nonwoven fabric, and its performance was evaluated as a filter capable of blocking or capturing particulate matter. The quality factor of the optimized PVA NF-based air filter was found to be 0.010606 Pa−1, which is lower than that of a HEPA filter (0.015394 Pa−1), but higher than that of a cabin air filter (0.010517 Pa−1) and a dust mask (0.009102 Pa−1). The contamination level of the PVA NF-based filter was analyzed by optical and structural analyses of the filter surface. Finally, the filter was soaked in water to selectively remove the contaminated PVA NF layer, and the remaining nonwoven fabric was able to be reused to make the filter.

Bio-based electrospun polyamide membrane – sustainable multipurpose filter membranes for microplastic filtration

“…Commercial air filters such as HEPA (high efficiency particulate air), cabin air filters and FFP3 face masks have high quality factors of 15, 10 and 19 kPa −1 respectively. 95,96 Compared to these, the bio-based EFMs exhibit lower performance with quality factors ranging between 2.5 and 2.9 kPa −1 for particles of 0.3 μm in diameter (Fig. 5B).…”

Nanostructures for the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of SARS-CoV-2: A Review

“…Although current technology systems are able to prevent the air transmission of these diseases due to filters used in these systems that reduce the circulation of particulate matters (PM) and microorganisms in the air, they are predisposed to microbial colonization, and therefore they are contaminated. Kim et al 119 developed an ecofriendly two-layered (poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) nanofiber/polypropylene (PP) nonwoven fabric) air filter fabricated by electrospinning. The filtration efficiency of the optimized PVA NF-based filter was reported as comparable to commercial air filters, such as dust masks, cabin filters, and HEPA filters.…”

An experimental design approach to examine the influencing parameters of poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) nanofibrous nonwoven by solution blow spinning

“…Nanofibers can be used in a diverse range of possible applications due to their astonishingly high surface-to-weight ratio [6]. For insantance, nanofibers can be used in filtration [7,8], wound dressing [9,10], drug delivery [11,12], tissue engineering [13,14], batteries [15,16] and in the manufacture of functional fabrics [17,18]. PBS nanofiber is produced using the cheap and simple electrospinning method [19][20][21][22][23][24].…”