Direct Blow-Spinning of Nanofibers on a Window Screen for Highly Efficient PM_2.5 Removal

Abstract

Particulate matter (PM) pollution has caused many serious public health issues. Whereas indoor air protection usually relies on expensive and energy-consuming filtering devices, direct PM filtration by window screens has attracted increasing attention. Recently, electrospun polymer nanofiber networks have been developed as transparent filters for highly efficient PM removal; however, it remains challenging to uniformly coat the nanofibers on window screens on a large scale and with low cost. Here, we report a blow-spinning technique that is fast, efficient, and free of high voltages for the large-scale direct coating of nanofibers onto window screens for indoor PM pollution protection. We have achieved a transparent air filter of 80% optical transparency with >99% standard removal efficiency level for PM A test on a real window (1 m × 2 m) in Beijing has proven that the nanofiber transparent air filter acquires excellent PM removal efficiency of 90.6% over 12 h under extremely hazy air conditions (PM mass concentration > 708 μg/m). Moreover, we show that the nanofibers can be readily coated on the window screen for pollution protection and can be easily removed by wiping the screen after hazardous days.

Fabrication and Characterization of Electrospun Nanofibrous Composite Membrane for Air Filtration

“…The results revealed that the pressure drop of all the samples was less than 25 Pa (Fig. 7), and the lowest pressure drop was 8.4 Pa for sample 11, which was much smaller than the values from other reports [7,18]. The low pressure drop indicated that high air exchange rate could be expected.…”

“…superfine and uniform fiber diameter, very large specific surface area, very high porosity, very small and uniform pore size. Khalid had applied Polyacrylonitrile (PAN), Poly (vinyl pyridine) (PVP), Poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), and Nylon-66 nano-fibrous membrane onto metallic mesh and nylon mesh to capture PM2.5 [7]. Their samples had good transparency and very high filtration efficiency.…”

Novel design of alumina foams with three‐dimensional reticular architecture for effective high‐temperature particulate matter capture

“…29 Compared with O1s spectrum of CB, new peak of O1s spectrum located at 532.3 eV (C=O) is detected in GCB, indicating the formation of ester group on its surface ( Figure 3E). 30 The N1s spectrum of GCB is comprised of two peaks of 398.9 (C-N) and 400.8 eV (NH), confirming the formations of amine and amide groups on its surface ( Figure 3F). 31,32 All these results of XPS further confirm the introduction of carbamate groups on CB surface.…”

“…After grafting, two additional peaks in C1s spectrum at 285.6 and 287.6 eV, respectively corresponding to functional groups of C–N and C=O are observed on the GCB surface (see Figure D) . Compared with O1s spectrum of CB, new peak of O1s spectrum located at 532.3 eV (C=O) is detected in GCB, indicating the formation of ester group on its surface (Figure E) . The N1s spectrum of GCB is comprised of two peaks of 398.9 (C–N) and 400.8 eV (NH), confirming the formations of amine and amide groups on its surface (Figure F) .…”

Facile Preparation of Porous Inorganic SiO2 Nanofibrous Membrane by Electrospinning Method

“…Electrospun fibrous membranes possess several fascinating features that make them very attractive for separation and adsorption of contaminants, such as a large surface-to-volume ratio, high porosity, interconnected open pore structure, and high permeability [6][7][8][9]. In particular, porous electrospun nanofibers have been proposed to enhance the performance with higher absorbance capacity and separation efficiency [10].…”