title: Highly Integrated Polysulfone/Polyacrylonitrile/Polyamide-6 Air Filter for Multilevel Physical Sieving Airborne Particles.
abstract: Rational structural design involving controlled pore size, high porosity, and particle-targeted function is critical to the realization of highly efficient air filters, and the filter with absolute particle-screen ability has significant technological implications for applications including individual protection, industrial security, and environmental governance; however, it remains an ongoing challenge. In this study, we first report a facile and scalable strategy to fabricate the highly integrated polysulfone/polyacrylonitrile/polyamide-6 (PSU/PAN/PA-6) air filter for multilevel physical sieving airborne particles via sequential electrospinning. Our strategy causes the PSU microfiber (diameter of ∼1 μm) layer, PAN nanofiber (diameter of ∼200 nm) layer, and PA-6 nanonets (diameter of ∼20 nm) layer to orderly assemble into the integrated filter with gradually varied pore structures and high porosity and thus enables the filter to work efficiently by employing different layers to cut off penetration of particles with a certain size that exceeds the designed threshold level. By virtue of its elaborate gradient structure, robust hydrophobicity (WCA of ∼130°), and superior mechanical property (5.6 MPa), our PSU/PAN/PA-6 filter even can filtrate the 300 nm particles with a high removal efficiency of 99.992% and a low pressure drop of 118 Pa in the way of physical sieving manner, which completely gets rid of the negative impact from high airflow speed, electret failure, and high humidity. It is expected that our highly integrated filter has wider applications for filtration and separation and design of 3D functional structure in the future.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University , Shanghai 201620, China.|Nanofibers Research Center, Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University , Shanghai 200051, China.
authors.forename: Shichao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University , Shanghai 201620, China.|Nanofibers Research Center, Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University , Shanghai 200051, China.
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University , Shanghai 201620, China.|Nanofibers Research Center, Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University , Shanghai 200051, China.
authors.forename: Leitao
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University , Shanghai 201620, China.
authors.forename: Xia
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Nanofibers Research Center, Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University , Shanghai 200051, China.
authors.forename: Jianyong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University , Shanghai 201620, China.|Key Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University , Shanghai 201620, China.|Nanofibers Research Center, Modern Textile Institute, Donghua University , Shanghai 200051, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ding
keywords: air filtration; integrated filter; microfiber; nanofiber; nanonets