Needleless electro-spun nanofibers used for filtration of small particles

Abstract

A composite aerosol filter media was prepared by depositing nanofibers on the non-woven fabrics substrate using needleless electrospinning technique. The polyvinyl alcohol nanofibers with mean diameters of ca. 100 nm were used as top layers. The filtration performance was evaluated by measuring the filtration of sodium chloride nanoparticles (75±20 nm) through the filters. It was found that the filtration efficiency of the composite filter media for nanoparticles was increased along with the thickness of nanofibers mats which was controlled by the collection time during the electrospinning. The multi-layer arrangement for fabrication of the composite filter can achieve high filtration efficiency (up to 99.95%) which was comparable to commercial high efficiency particulate air filters but with higher quality factor and less mass.

Keywords

• Nanocomposites
• Needleless electrospinning
• Nanofibers
• Filtration
• Nanoparticles