Development of composite filters with high efficiency, low pressure drop, and high holding capacity PM2.5 filtration

Abstract

Many efforts are being made to develop filters with high efficiency and high holding capacity but remaining a low pressure drop. A two-layer composite filter to achieve the goal was developed, in which the first layer was a charged coarse fibers to provide large void space for particle loading and the second was a thin layer of charged melt-blown with finer fibers to enhance the overall efficiency. Experimental results showed that although the new composite media had a lower initial efficiency than the other two HEPA filters (PTFE and glass fiber filter), its figure of merit (FOM) was the highest. Besides, the composite media had a better holding capacity for PM2.5 than the other two. At a fixed mass load, i.e., 2 g m−2, the PTFE (ΔP = 380 Pa) and glass fiber (ΔP = 165 Pa) required around 7.6 and 3.3 times more power, respectively, than the composite media (ΔP = 50 Pa). Due to the low charge level of the coarse fiber layer and the fine fiber diameter of the melt-blown layer, resulted in no efficiency reduction along the loading process. Theoretical analysis showed that the charge shielding and the loss of efficiency in the successive top-down layers were timely compensated by the efficiency enhancement caused by the loading effects, which made the composite media a much uniform deposition of PM2.5 in layers. This was the main reason resulting in the high holding capacity and low pressure drop of the current composite media which acted like a perfect depth filtration media.