Testing the Efficiency of the Simultaneous Air Cleaning of Dust and Gases by Fibrous Filtering and Sorptive Structures

This study presents an evaluation of the filter-sorptive properties of multi-layer fibrous structures containing highly efficient polypropylene nonwovens formed with the melt-blown technique and a composite nonwoven with active carbon. Simultaneous tests of the air cleaning of fine particles (size range: 9 nm – 154 nm) and toluene vapour as a test solvent, introduced into the atmospheric aerosol, were performed. It was discovered that the supply of toluene vapour to the measuring system did not significantly impact the curves of the average filtering efficiency with respect to particle size. All the multi-layer filter-sorptive structures tested had a very high average fractional filtering efficiency, greatly exceeding the filtering efficiency of a componential mono-layer composite nonwoven with active car-bon. The toluene vapour sorption efficiency of the structures (with a simultaneous supply of atmospheric aerosol) was very similar to the sorption efficiency of the composite nonwoven. Key words: filter-sorptive structures, melt-blown nonwovens, composite nonwovens, frac-tional filtering efficiency, sorption efficiency. absorb volatile toxic substances seems t