Formation and characterisation of air filter material printed by melt electrospinning

Abstract A novel fibre printing apparatus was developed, employing the principles of additive printing and melt electrospinning, and used to form fibre mats. Five commercially available polyamide and polyolefin-based polymers were tested for the production of high-efficiency media for air filtration using melt electrospinning. The mats were tested for PM 1 filtration efficiency. Polyamide-based polymer was revealed as the most useful for printing, producing mats with optimum morphology (median fibre diameter of 5.04 μm and interquartile range of 4.35 μm). A total of 11 samples from 68 originally prepared ones met the requirements of PM 1 class filters. The filtration efficiency ( e PM 1 ) ranged from 55% to 80%, while the quality factor varied between 0.013 and 0.037 Pa -1 , with a comparatively low basis weight (86.03–376.81 g/m 2 ), indicating the high potential of such media for applications in the air filtration sector.