Cleanable Air Filter Transferring Moisture and Effectively Capturing PM2.5

The lethal danger of particulate matter (PM) pollution on health leads to the development of challenging individual protection materials that should ideally exhibit a high PM2.5 purification efficiency, low air resistance, an important moisture-vapor transmission rate (MVTR), and an easy-to-clean property. Herein, a cleanable air filter able to rapidly transfer moisture and efficiently capture PM2.5 is designed by electrospinning superhydrophilic polyacrylonitrile/silicon-dioxide fibers as the adsorption-desorption vector for moisture-vapor, and hydrophobic polyvinylidene fluoride fibers as the repellent components to avoid the formation of capillary water under high humidity. The desorption rate of water molecules increases from 10 to 18 mg min(-1), while the diameters of polyacrylonitrile fibers reduce from 1.02 to 0.14 mu m. Significantly, by introducing the hydroxyl on the surface of polyacrylonitrile nanofibers, rapid adsorption-desorption of the water molecules is observed. Moreover, by constructing a hydrophobic to super-hydrophilic gradient structure, the MVTR increases from 10.346 to 14.066 g m(-2) d(-1). Interestingly, the prepared fibrous membranes is easy to clean. More importantly, benefiting from enhanced slip effect, the resultant fibrous membranes presented a low air resistance of 86 Pa. A field test in Shanghai shows that the air filter maintains stable PM2.5 purification efficiency of 99.99% at high MVTR during haze event.