Open Access

ARTICLE

Development of PAN nano fibrous filter hybridized by SiO₂ nanoparticles electret for high efficiency air filtration

N. GOBI¹, E. VIJAYALAKSHMI¹, BERLY ROBERT¹, N. R. SRINIVASAN²

1 Department of Textile Technology, Anna University, Chennai 600 025, India
2 Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India

* Corresponding Author: e-mail:

Journal of Polymer Materials 2018, 35(3), 317-328. https://doi.org/10.32381/JPM.2018.35.03.6

Abstract

Airborne dust particles has become an ever-increasing environmental concern and is also a threat to public health, leading the way in the development of fibrous materials with fascinating features like high filtration efficiency and low pressure drop. To enhance the filtration efficiency of fibrous material, particularly for submicron- sized particles, here we report a promising and versatile electret polyacrylonitrile-silicon dioxide (PAN- SiO₂ ) fibrous membrane, considering the higher particle capture efficiency for an electret filter compared to a conventional fibrous filter. The chemical bond nonwoven and spun bond nonwoven substrates were used as support material to enhance the mechanical property and also the handling property of the as developed electrospun nanofibrous membrane. In this research work, SiO₂ is identified as the potential material for developing electret filter due to its dipolar nature. The concentrations of SiO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) were varied to achieve better filtration efficiency. The morphology of fibrous membrane, its air permeability, areal density and thickness properties were analyzed as per standard test methods. The filter fabrics were developed and its filtration performance and pressure drop were also characterized.

---

Keywords

---