High Efficiency Poly(acrylonitrile) Electrospun Nanofiber Membranes for Airborne Nanomaterials Filtration

Abstract

The potential of poly(acrylonitrile) electrospun membranes with tuneable pore size and fiber distributions were investigated for airborne fine-particle filtration for the first time. The impact of solution concentration on final membrane properties are evaluated for the purpose of designing separation materials with higher separation efficiency. The properties of fibers and membranes are investigated systematically: the average pore distribution, as characterized by capillary flow porometry, and thermo-mechanical properties of the mats are found to be dependent on fiber diameter and on specific electrospinning conditions. Filtration efficiency and pressure drop are calculated from measurement of penetration through the membranes using potassium chloride (KCl) aerosol particles ranging from 300 nm to 12 mm diameter. The PAN membranes exhibited separation efficiencies in the range of 73.8-99.78% and a typical quality factor 0.0224 (1 Pa À1 ) for 12 wt% PAN with nanofibers having a diameter of 858 nm. Concerning air flow rate, the quality factor and filtration efficiency of the electrospun membranes at higher face velocity are much more stable than for commercial membranes. The results suggest that the structure of electrospun membranes is the best for air filtration in terms of filtration stability at high air flow rate.

Mixed Matrix Poly(Vinyl Alcohol)-Copper Nanofibrous Anti-Microbial Air-Microfilters

“…The filtration performance given by the PVA-Copper nanofiber membranes is in agreement with other nanofiber air-filtration membranes investigated as transparent air filters, showing a filtration efficiency over 98.5% for PM 2.5 [39]. For instance, poly(acrylonitrile) PAN nanofiber membranes of 858 nm average fiber diameter showed a filtration efficiency between 96.6 and 99.7% for the (0.3, 5.0) μm particle size range [27].…”

Multifunctional filter membrane for face mask using bacterial cellulose for highly efficient particulate matter removal

“…Also, BC–FT filter membrane is made up of abundant O–H group which may induce interactions between the PSL particles and BC fibers (Zhang et al 2019 ). The BC–FT filter membrane shows higher removal efficiency than those reported earlier with different materials (Al-Attabi et al 2018 ; Cao et al 2019 ; Chen et al 2019 ; Tan et al 2019 ). The high efficiency of the filter membrane in filtering 0.1 μm particles means it can effectively filter respiratory droplets which are noted for the transmission of Covid-19.…”

Efficient nanoparticles removal and bactericidal action of electrospun nanofibers membranes for air filtration

“…Comparing these studies, it is possible to note that the filters reported in this study are composed of PAN material of small fibers diameter that probably explains the high-quality factor. In addition, a very high filtration efficiency (approximately 100% filtration efficiency) in the range of 9 to 300 nm aerosol particles diameters and quality factor (0.05) were reached by our PAN/Ag NPs filter in comparison to commercial filters (filtration efficiency less than 80% and quality factor of 0.02) reported elsewhere [17], [70], [71]. It should be noted that the face velocity, particle size, and material composition may be different in the aforementioned studies.…”