Efficacy of ionic/non-ionic surfactants and electret nanomaterials on PES electrospun nanofiber filters for PM0.3 filtration

Abstract

Air pollution is now considered the biggest threat to human health as it brings millions of deaths annually. One of the primary air pollutants, particulate matter (PM), can induce eye, skin, and nose irritation, and travel deep into the respiratory tract, affecting lung functions and causing lung cancer and heart diseases. This issue brings up the urgent need for highly effective air filtration membranes. Even though there are several commercially produced melt-blown air filters, their potential is limited by a large fiber diameter, filtration efficiency loss, and non- reusability. Still, producing air filters that achieve high efficiency and low air resistance is challenging. Thus, this work focuses on the introduction of different types of surfactants and nanomaterials to the commonly used polymer, such as polyethersulfone (PES), to produce nanofiber membranes for the PM0.3 filtration of by one-step electrospinning process for the investigation of the efficacy of surfactants and nanomaterials on membrane’s morphology, fiber diameter, pore size, filtration efficiency, etc. Surfactants effectively improved filtration efficiency up to 95% against PM0.3 particles by reducing fiber diameter and pore size, which improved interception effect, compared to 86.7% of pure PES membrane. Nanomaterials such as Barium Titanate and Silicon Nitride were used as charge enhancers, and they contributed to the improvement of the filtration performance, reaching 96.9% of filtration efficiency and 33.3 Pa of pressure drop, thanks to both modified morphology and improved electrostatic force. Shortly, the main goal of this work is to study the filtration performance of the electrospun PES nanofiber membranes under the effect of different surfactant types and electret nanoparticles.