AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Evaluation of Nanoparticle Collection Efficiency for Nonwoven Textiles
DONNA VOSBURGH, Levi Mines, Jae Hong Park, Stephanie Alami, Ozgur Yavuzcetin, Thomas Peters, T. Renee Anthony, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Abstract Number: 669 Working Group: Aerosol Physics
Abstract New personal nanoparticle samplers have been developed to streamline nanoparticle exposure assessment using a variety of size-selective collection substrates. Nonwoven textiles have the potential to serve as the collection substrate for a personal nanoparticle sampler as theoretical models indicate that collection efficiency can be varied to meet desired criteria depending on textile characteristics such as fiber diameter, basis weight, fiber composition, and textile thickness. However, before nonwoven textiles can be used in the design of a nanoparticle sampler, the theoretical collection efficiency should be verified with nonwoven textiles. The collection efficiency of test materials consisting of various commercially available nonwoven textiles from two manufacturers were measured and compared to theory.
Test materials were placed into a 25 mm conductive polypropylene cassette. One and two layers of test materials were challenged with a polydispersed NaCl aerosol (number median diameter = 124 nm). A Fast Mobility Particle Sizer was used to measure the particle concentration with and without the test materials in line and the collection efficiency was calculated. The theoretical collection efficiency was calculated using the Payen et al. (2012) theoretical model. The coefficient of determination (R-squared) was used to compare the measured collection efficiencies to the theoretical collection efficiencies.
For all test materials, the theoretical collection efficiencies overestimated the measured collection efficiencies. The R-squared values for one layer of test material ranged from 0.20 to 0.89 while the R-squared values for two layers ranged from -0.30 to 0.72. Fiber shape and composition may explain the large variability in R-squared values. Additional research is needed to improve the theoretical collection efficiency model for nonwoven textiles.
References
Payen, J., et al. (2012). Influence of fiber diameter, fiber combinations and solid volume fraction on air filtration properties in nonwovens. Textile Research Journal. 82: 1948-1959.