Carbon Nanotube Filtration

SEONG CHAN KIM (1), Jing Wang (1), David Y.H. Pui (1)

(1) University of Minnesota

     Abstract Number: 310
     Last modified: May 5, 2010

Abstract
The global market for carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is predicted to keep growing because of new and increasing industrial demands. However, the needle-like fiber shape of CNTs has been compared to asbestos, raising concerns that widespread use of CNTs may lead to serious diseases caused by exposure to asbestos. In this study, a high concentration CNT generation system using an electrospray was developed, and CNT filtration test using a model screen filter and fibrous filter media. The experimental results show that CNTs with smaller mobility diameters have similar penetration with spherical nanoparticles due to their dominant effect of diffusion, but the CNT penetration is getting lower than spherical nanoparticles due to their increasing interception effect. A computational modeling based on a cylindrical particle dynamics shows a good agreement with the experimental results.