Facile electrospun Polyacrylonitrile/poly(acrylic acid) nanofibrous membranes for high efficiency particulate air filtration

Abstract

Polyacrylonitrile/poly(acrylic acid) (PAN/PAA with weight radios of 3/7, 4/6, 5/5, 6/4, 7/3 and 10/0) nanofibers (NFs) were prepared as filter medium by electrospinning. The tensile strength of blended nanofibrous mats increased as increasing PAA content, from 3.8 to 6.6 MPa, higher than pristine PAN. The mesoporous effect of nanofibrous mats was also investigated from the nitrogen physisorption isotherms, average pore size in the range of 17-44 nm. Air filtration efficiency and pressure drop of nanofibrous mats were evaluated. PAN/PAA (6/4) NFs showed high filtration efficiency (99.994 %) with lowest pressure drop (160 Pa) for 300-500 nm sodium chloride aerosol particles at a 5.3 cm/s airflow velocity, which suggested this material was appropriate as a promising candidate for high performance filters.

Efficient and reusable polyamide-56 nanofiber/nets membrane with bimodal structures for air filtration

“…Compared with various routes including melt-blown [14], template synthesis [15], sea-island spinning [16], phase-separation [17], plasma treatment [18], etc., electrospinning has emerged as the most versatile and effective technology for large-scale fabricating nanofibers with controlled morphologies and functional components from various materials [19,20]. And, many electrospun filtration media (usually with diameter of 100 nm to 1 lm), such as polyacrylonitrile (PAN) [21], PAN/poly(acrylic acid) [22], PAN/polyurethane (PU) [23], polyvinyl chloride/PU [7], polyetherimide [24], polysulfone [25], poly(lactic acid) [26], and polyamide-66 (PA-66) [27] , have been successfully prepared and exhibit effectively enhanced filtration performance. However, they still suffer from some drawbacks: inadequate filtration performance, weak mechanical property, and short service life caused by the deep bed filtration manner, all of which can be ascribe to the limited structural controllability involving thick fiber diameter (not real nanoscale of <100 nm) and easy-collapsed cavity structure.…”

Sandwich structured polyamide-6/polyacrylonitrile nanonets/bead-on-string composite membrane for effective air filtration

“…Among them the electrospinning has emerged as the most versatile and effective technology for large-scale fabricating nanofibers with controlled morphologies and functional components from various materials [20][21][22]. And, many electrospun filter media ( diameter of 100 nm $1 lm), such as poly(vinyl alcohol) [23], PAN/ poly(acrylic acid) [24], PAN/polyurethane (PU) [25], polyvinyl chloride/PU [6], polyetherimide [26], polyamide-66 (PA-66) [27], and so on, have been successfully fabricated so far. However, some drawbacks still remain: (i) the limited refinement of diameter, resulting in the inadequate filtration efficiency; (ii) the circular cross-sections, smooth surfaces, and high packing density, causing the low air flow penetration and high energy consumption.…”

Bilayer Electrospun Nanofibre Structures to Improve Quality Factor in Air Filtration

“…In all the SEM images, micro-scale roughness is prominent at the surface of PAN nanofibres unlike the rod-like smooth nanofibres reported in other studies [11,12]. This roughness may be due to the different accelerating voltages used to view the samples under SEM.…”