Abstract
Abstract The demand of high-performance filter media for the face masks is urgent nowadays due to the severe air pollution. Herein, a highly breathable and thermal comfort membrane that combines the asymmetrically superwettable skin layer with the nanofibrous membrane has been fabricated via successive electrospinning and electrospraying technologies. Thanks to high porosity, interconnected pore structure, and across-thickness wettability gradient, the composite membrane with a low basis weight of 3.0 g m−2 exhibits a good air permeability of 278 mm s−1, a comparable water vapor permeability difference of 3.61 kg m−2 d−1, a high filtration efficiency of 99.3%, a low pressure drop of 64 Pa, and a favorable quality factor of 0.1089 Pa−1, which are better than those of the commercial polypropylene. Moreover, the multilayer-structured membrane displays a modest infrared transmittance of 92.1% that can keep the human face cool and comfort. This composite fibrous medium is expected to protect humans from PM2.5 and keep them comfortable even in a hygrothermal environment.
Highlights
Severe air pollution is currently one of the global issues that threaten human beings, which is mainly due to the emissions from on-road vehicles, industrial production activities, and dust [1,2]
In order to obtain a high-performance filtration membrane with both good breathable and directional moisture transport properties for the face mask that has favorable wearing comfortability, an asymmetrically superwettable membrane with a surface wettability gradient was constructed by integrating superwettable skin layers with an open porous structured composite membrane
The representative scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of the PAN nanofibrous membrane (NFM) derived from various solution concentrations and the PEI NFMs shown in Figure 2a–e illustrate that the electrospun PAN and PEI NFMs were 3D nonwoven membranes assembled with randomly oriented nanofibers
Summary
Severe air pollution is currently one of the global issues that threaten human beings, which is mainly due to the emissions from on-road vehicles, industrial production activities, and dust [1,2]. A variety of electrospun fibrous media for air filtration have purposely been developed, including polyacrylonitrile (PAN) and polylactic acid [13,14]. By combining the electrospinning of right type of polymer and SiO2 NPs, a desired composite membrane with a hierarchical structure and good performance could be fabricated. Nearly no effort has been put to the study on the wearing comfortability of an electrospun composite membrane, especially on the relationship between the membrane structure and wearing comfortability. The challenge remains in developing NFMs with high filtration performance and creditable wearing comfortability. Inspired by the features of moisture-wicking technologies and push–pull effect, NFMs with an across-thickness wettability gradient have been fabricated to study the effects of surface structure and wettability on the directional moisture transport process.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
