AAAR 36th Annual Conference October 16 - October 20, 2017 Raleigh Convention Center Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Abstract View
Use of Nanofibrous Membranes for Effective Filtration of Fine Particles
Jun Xi Lee, Sundarrajan Subramanian, RAJASEKHAR BALASUBRAMANIAN, National University of Singapore
Abstract Number: 782 Working Group: Control and Mitigation Technology
Abstract Air filters are widely used to protect indoor building occupants from being adversely affected by toxic components in airborne particulate matter (PM). Conventional air filters based on nonwoven fibers are not capable of capturing fine particles (PM2.5) efficiently due to the micro-sized fiber diameter. To enhance the filtration efficiency of the filter media, it is necessary to make much thicker media for smaller pore sizes. However, thicker filter media can be difficult to use due to increased pressure drop, and thus higher energy cost. In recent years, nanofiber-based filters have received considerable attention for air filtration because of large surface-area-to volume ratio and low basis weight, nanoporous structures, as well as the uniform size electrospun nanofiber materials, contributing to their enhanced filtration performance. A major drawback of nano-sized filters is that they cannot be used alone due to their low mechanical strength. To overcome this problem, we combined the advantages of electrospun nanofibers with those of conventional filter media to yield hybrid functional membranes. Nanofiber coated filters showed much higher filtration efficiency without any increase in the pressure drop than the conventional filter media. In addition, the filters can be reused. Consequently, the operating life of the filter media is eventually expected to be longer.