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Bifunctional Activated Carbon Ultrathin Fibers: Combining the Removal of VOCs and PM in One Material

Advanced Fiber Materials volume 5, pages 1934–1948 (2023)Cite this article

Abstract

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particulate matter (PM) are both frequently present in air as contaminants, posing serious health and environmental hazards. The current filtration of VOCs utilizes entirely different materials compared with PM filtration, adding complexity to air cleaning system. Herein, we design a pitch-based activated carbon ultrathin fibers (PACUFs) for bifunctional air purification. The PACUFs, with fiber diameter of ∼1.2 µm and specific surface area of 2341 m2 g−1, provide both high VOCs adsorption capacity (∼706 mg g−1) and excellent efficiency of ∼97% PM0.3 filtration with low pressure drop. In contrast, traditional activated carbon fibers exhibit VOCs adsorption capacity of ∼448 mg g−1 and PM0.3 removal efficiency of only ∼36% at an equal area density of ∼190 g m−2. Theoretical investigations reveal the filtration mechanism of the high-performance bifunctional fibrous PACUFs, considering full advantages of the high surface area, small pore size, and significant micropore volume.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

H.W., L.H.Z., and B.L supervised the project. H.W., B.L, and H.Y.W. conceived the idea. H.Y.W., P.D., Z.W.L., Z.K.C., C.Y., Y.Q.Z., and L.L. contributed to the material preparation and characterization. L.H.Z., X.Y.J., Z.W.C., and H.Y.W. contributed to the simulation and theoretical analysis. H.Y.W., D.Z, P.D., Z.W.L., Z.K.C., K.Y.W., B.H.L., B.P.Z., and L.L. conducted SEM, XRD and Raman characterizations. Y.X., Z.H.H., H.W., B.L., D.Z., X.Y.J., Z.W.C., and H.Y.W. contributed to writing the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. This work was supported by the Basic Science Center Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant No. 51788104, and Beijing Natural Science Foundation under Grant No. JQ19005.

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  1. Haiyang Wang, Di Zu and Xinyu Jiang have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Lab of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Haiyang Wang, Di Zu, Peng Du, Zekun Cheng, Ziwei Li, Lei Li, Chong Yang, Xiaopeng Bai, Baopu Zhang, Yiqian Zhou, Kuangyu Wang, Bohan Li, Zhenghong Huang & Hui Wu

  2. Institute of Materials Research, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School, Shenzhen, 518055, People’s Republic of China

    Haiyang Wang & Bo Li

  3. Applied Mechanics Laboratory, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Xinyu Jiang, Zhiwen Cui & Lihao Zhao

  4. Beijing Tongfang Envir-Clean Technology Co., LTD, Beijing, 100083, People’s Republic of China

    Yong Xu

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  1. Haiyang Wang
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Wang, H., Zu, D., Jiang, X. et al. Bifunctional Activated Carbon Ultrathin Fibers: Combining the Removal of VOCs and PM in One Material. Adv. Fiber Mater. 5, 1934–1948 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42765-023-00309-0

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