Fabrication and characterization of multifunctional nanoclay and TiO2 embedded polyamide electrospun nanofibers and their applications at indoor air filtration

Abstract

The multifunctional polyamide-6 (PA-6) electrospun nanofibers were fabricated for indoor air filtration. Nanoclay (NC) was used as nanoadsorbent, and TiO2 was preffered as nanocatalyst for photocatalytic oxidation of toluene. The main responses of study were selected as characterization (fiber diameter, tensile strength, air permeability and water vapor transmission) and performance parameters (adsorption and oxidation of toluene). These parameters of nanofibers ranged from 75.8 to 135.9 nm for fiber diameter, 0.51-3.47 MPa for tensile strength, 11.6-19.0 mm/sn for air permeability, 119.9-309.4 g/m2.h for water vapor permeability, 7.0%-43.7% adsorption efficiency at 15 min, and 7.4-12.6% oxidation efficiency at 66 min. The increase in NC content decreased the air permeability values and increased the tensile strength values of nanofibers. The adsorption efficiencies of nanofibers increased from 7% to 28.9, 35.3 and 43.7% with increasing NC ratios (0.0-0.025-0.05-0.5%). The highest CO2 production was obtained for nanofiber having 0.05% of NC and 1% of TiO2 at low UV light energy and short filtration time.