Clogging performance of micro/nanofibrous laminated composite air filter media

The performance of fibrous filter media relies on factors such as particle capture efficiency, pressure drop and clogging time. Fiber diameter, porosity and packing density are important web-based factors to improve final filtration performance. In this study, composite nonwoven webs were produced using spunbonded, meltblown and electroblown mats to obtain filter media with different fiber diameter, porosity and packing density. Such a layered composite approach caused huge differences in porosity and packing density, which resulted with improved clogging performance. The average fiber diameter was found to be 65 ± 19.4 nm for electroblown layer (N), while that was 1.17 ± 0.38 μm for meltblown (M) and 17.64 ± 2.65 μm for spunbond (S) layers. NM (nanofiber+meltblown) configuration provided 12–13% lower mean flow pore size, which resulted in faster clogging compared to NS (nanofiber + spunbond) mats. The thicker nanofibrous layer resulted in lower pore size and quality factor. Additionally, the composite samples showed a faster-rising pressure drop than the thick microfibrous mats due to smaller pores that clogged quickly. It was also shown that nanofiber coating causes a linear increase in pressure drop with dust loading, while microfibrous samples exhibited smooth plateau and linear increase after clogging point. Nanofiber layer facilitates cake formation which causes more difficult airflow, and lower dust holding capacity. Among the layered composite mats, the NM configurations were found to be more advantageous due to higher initial filtration efficiency and almost similar dust loading performance.