Original Article
  • Performance Study of Composite Air Filters Using Heterogeneous Fibers

  • Ji Soo Lee*,**, Yuree Oh*, Heejin Kim*,**, Hyun-Seol Park***, Sam S. Yoon**†, Min Wook Lee*†

  • * Institute of Advanced Composite Materials, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Jeonbuk 55324, Korea
    ** School of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea Climate Change Technology Research Division, Korea
    *** Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon 34129, Korea

  • This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Recently, the worldwide demand for disposable masks has increased due to COVID-19 infections and severe air pollution. Personal masks should reduce breathe resistance while maintaining filtering performance. In this study, a solution blowing process is used to produce composite nanofiber filters to co-spin two polymers at once. The manufacture process of the various fiber diameter filter was designed, and the filtration performance and differential pressure of the prepared filter was investigated. Poly vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene (PVDF-HFP) and Polylactic acid (PLA) fibers were chosen to be entangled together in a layer with a diameter of 1.05 μm and 0.33 μm. Composite nanofilters showed up to 87% filtration efficiency and 32 Pa differential pressure.


Keywords: Air filter, Composite, Heterogeneous fibers, Solution blow spinning

This Article

Correspondence to

  • Sam S. Yoon **, Min Wook Lee *

  • * Institute of Advanced Composite Materials, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Jeonbuk 55324, Korea
    ** School of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul 02841, Korea Climate Change Technology Research Division, Korea

  • E-mail: skyoon@korea.ac.kr, mwlee0713@kist.re.kr