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Controllable diameter of electrospun nanofibers based on the velocity of whipping jets for high-efficiency air filtration

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Abstract

Electrospun nanofibers are regarded as a promising candidate for filtration because of their prominent size effect. The precise control of nanofiber diameter is the key to the material’s outstanding filtration capability, but it remains a challenge. Herein, an electrohydrodynamic scaling model is established for the accurate prediction of fiber diameter based on the velocity of the whipping jet. In this model, the velocity reflects jet stretching and is tuned by adding salt. The theoretical predictions agree well with the experimental results. With the proposed diameter model, the filtration property of the membrane is significantly optimized by governing the fiber diameter. When the nanofiber is slenderized to 183 nm, an ultralight (0.521 g m−2) membrane exhibits high filtration efficiency (99.93%) and low pressure drop (105.2 Pa) against ultrafine aerosol particles (≤0.26 µm) under an airflow face velocity of 5.33 cm s−1. These findings demonstrate that the established surface charge-based diameter model provides an excellent platform to timely and accurately control the nanofiber diameter via the velocity of whipping jets for high-efficiency air filtration.

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Funding

This work was partly supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos. 2232020D-15, 2232020A-08, 2232020G-01, 2232020D-14, 2232019D3-11) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51773037, 51973027, 51803023, 52003044, 61771123). This work has also been supported by the Chang Jiang Scholars Program and the Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (Grant No. 2019-01-07-00-03-E00023) to Prof. QIN XiaoHong, the Shanghai Sailing Program (Grant No. 19YF1400700), the Opening Project of State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure (Grant No. SKL201906SIC), the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST, and the DHU Distinguished Young Professor Program to Prof. WANG LiMing, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Graduate Student Innovation Fund of Donghua University (Grant No. CUSF-DH-D-2020015) to Ms. LEI SaiLing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Textile Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Textiles, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China

    SaiLing Lei, LiMing Wang, RongWu Wang & XiaoHong Qin

  2. Innovation Center for Textile Science and Technology, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China

    JianYong Yu

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  1. SaiLing Lei
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  2. LiMing Wang
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  3. RongWu Wang
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  4. XiaoHong Qin
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Correspondence to LiMing Wang or RongWu Wang.

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The supporting information is available online at tech.scichina.com and link.springer.com. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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11431_2021_1967_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Controllable diameter of electrospun nanofibers based on the velocity of whipping jets for high-efficiency air filtration

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Lei, S., Wang, L., Wang, R. et al. Controllable diameter of electrospun nanofibers based on the velocity of whipping jets for high-efficiency air filtration. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 65, 481–489 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-021-1967-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-021-1967-4

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