Multifunctional nickel nanofiber for effective air purification: PM removal and NO reduction from automobile exhaust

Abstract

Particulate matter and NO pollution caused by automobile exhaust cause severe air pollution and respiratory diseases. Traditional gasoline particulate filter and three-way catalysts face the problem of high cost and no resistance to high temperature. Development of multifunctional filtration purification media with low cost and temperature resistance is necessary. In this paper, Ni nanofibers filter is easily fabricated by electrospinning, suitable for working environment with variable temperature. Moreover, between adjacent nanofibers, the preferable fused junction was formed which is beneficial to mechanical properties of the filter. The Ni nanofibers filter exhibits outstanding PM1 and NO gas removal ability. The PM1 filtration efficiency up to 99.86% @300 nm was achieved under wing speed of 5.3 cm/s. Moreover, the Ni nanofibers also achieve impressive NO-to-N2 and NO adsorption ability owing to the high specific surface area and activity of Ni nanofiber itself. As such, the multifunctional Ni nanofibers filter equips the potential for the actual application in automobile exhaust purification converter.