Jong-Hwan Lee  Jae-Min Hyun  Jang-Hun Lee  Ryong Kim

Vol. 56,  No. 6, pp. 369-378, Dec.  2019
10.12772/TSE.2019.56.369

Electrospinning air filter Multi-layer filter efficiency Nanofiber

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A high-performance air filter media, with a width of 1 m, was manufactured using an electrospinning system. The filter media materials utilized polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as a support layer, polyethersulfone (PES) as a polymer, dimethylformamide (DMF) and N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as a solvent, and cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a surfactant. The experimental variables for the electrospinning process included the polymer concentration and laminated structure (i.e., single-layer, multi-layer). The physicochemical properties of the manufactured nanofiber filter media were obtained using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and the universal testing machine (UTM). The filter media performance was verified using a filter tester (TSI 3160, NaCl aerosol 0.3 um @32 l/min) and capillary flow porometer (CFP). In the case of a single-layer configuration, the filtration efficiency increased as the pore size decreased. However, the differential pressure increased simultaneously. Furthermore, the presence of beads and unformed fibers was determined using scanning electron microscope (SEM) images when the polymer concentration dropped below a certain level (20wt%). However, the addition of CTAB enabled electrospinning in low-concentration polymer solutions. In the case of a multi-layered configuration, the pore size uniformity was increased by the multi-layer configuration of nanofibers of different diameters, which significantly improved the filter performance (quality factor: 0.20 - single-layer, 0.85 - multi-layer).