Electrospinning cellulose acetate nanofibers and a study of their possible use in high-efficiency filtration

Cellulose acetate was dissolved in trifluoroacetic acid and electrospun onto polypropylene non-woven material. An upstream layer of polypropylene non-woven material was added to form a three-layered polypropylene/cellulose acetate/polypropylene filter. The thickness of the electrospun cellulose acetate layer was varied by changing the electrospinning time. The fabricated filter was then characterized. Cellulose acetate nanofibers were also electrospun onto an aluminum foil collector with the aim of studying the changes in fiber properties when they are electrospun onto the polypropylene non-woven material. The results obtained in this research work indicated that the layer of nanofibers electrospun onto polypropylene non-woven material increased the filtration efficiency of polypropylene non-woven material from 50.23% to 91.29%, but the quality factor reduced by 29.1%. When the cellulose acetate deposition time was increased from 3h to 6h, the filtration efficiency further increased to 98.26% and the quality factor increased by 0.6%. A comparison between cellulose acetate nanofibers electrospun using an aluminum foil as the collector and those electrospun directly onto the polypropylene non-woven material indicated that cellulose acetate fibers electrospun onto polypropylene non-woven material had poorer fiber quality properties.