Electrospun Magnetic Nanoparticle-Decorated Nanofiber Filter and Its Applications to High-Efficiency Air Filtration

Abstract

Filtration technology has been widely studied due to concerns about exposure to airborne dust, including metal oxide nanoparticles, which cause serious health problems. The aim of these studies has been to develop mechanisms for the continuous and efficient removal of metal oxide dusts. In this study, we introduce a novel air filtration system based on the magnetic attraction force. The filtration system is composed of a magnetic nanoparticle (MNP)-decorated nanofiber (MNP-NF) filter. Using a simple electrospinning system, we fabricated continuous and smooth electrospun nanofibers with evenly distributed Fe3O4 MNPs. Our electrospun MNP-NF filter exhibited high particle collection efficiency (similar to 97% at 300 nm particle size) compared to the control filter (w/o MNPs, similar to 68%), with a similar to 64% lower pressure drop (similar to 17 Pa) than the control filter (similar to 27 Pa). Finally, the filter quality factors of the MNP-NF filter were 4.7 and 11.9 times larger than those of the control filter and the conventional high-efficiency particulate air filters (>99% and similar to 269 Pa), respectively. Furthermore, we successfully performed a field test of our MNP-NF filter using dust from a subway station tunnel. This work suggests that our novel MNP-NF filter can be used to facilitate effective protection against hazardous metal oxide dust in real environments.