Fabrication and characterization of electrospun polymer nanofiber based membranes for air filtration processes

Abstract

The sternness of air pollution has increased in context to increase the human population, industrialization, and global warming. Formation and emission of air pollutants including particulate matter and gaseous compounds have proven to be major causes for mortality in the environment. Thus, several approaches and air filtration technologies have been investigated for combating the effects faced through air pollution. Air Filtration is a widely explored unit operation applicable in engineering and combination with other techniques. The mechanism of air filtration occurs through inertial impaction, interception, and Brownian diffusion. Inertial impaction occurs for larger particles which do not follow the air streamline, highly applicable for particles greater than 0.3 and#956;m, an interception occurs for particles that follow the air streamline usually above 0.3 - 1 and#956;m and Brownian diffusion occurs for particles below 0.3 and#956;m where particles collide with the molecules due to Brownian motion and are captured. On considering the total efficiency, a decrease in filtration efficiency is observed in common at 0.3 and#956;m owing to the aspect that the particular particle size does not obey any of the above-mentioned filtration mechanisms and is considered under the Most Penetrating Particle Size (MPPS). Although several filters are readily available with higher filtration efficiency among larger particle size, when considering particles of 0.3 and#956;m, there still exists a bottleneck in filtration. Besides, bacterial aerosols other major contaminants affecting human health currently require a suitable filter membrane for both capture and control. In the present research, the bottlenecks faced in filtration were reduced by improving the features of filtration efficiency through three mechanisms such as Electrostatic, Antibacterial, and Magnetic air filtration besides the pre-existing mechanisms to result in hybrid air filters. To capture particles in the range of 0.1- 1 and#956;m and to reduce the heavyweight structure and bulkiness of the filter membrane, nanofibers have been produced through the electrospinning process which is a highly efficient electrohydrodynamic process newline