Electrospinning of poly (ether sulfone) and evaluation of the filtration efficiency

Abstract

To produce high heat-resistant air filter, filtration properties of poly (ether sulfone) (PES) made by various electrospinning conditions were evaluated. The PES webs of 0.4-1.1 μm average diameter fiber were obtained from 3540 wt% PES / N,N- Dimethylacetamide (DMAc) solution. The diameter profile of electrospun PES web was clearly affected by PES concentration of the spinning dope and feeding rate of the dope, while the take-up speed effects little. The needle-collector distance affects the diameter profile for higher feeding rate conditions. The pore size of these webs was 1.3 - 5.6 μm, which was decided not only average fiber diameter but also fiber diameter variation. Both filtration efficiency and pressure loss were dropped steeply at about 3.0 μm of pore size. For the web having a pore size of 3.2 μm, the pressure loss decrease to 215 Pa, while the filtration efficiency for 0.3 μm particle kept 99.9998 %, which satisfied the HEPA requirement.