STRUCTURE AND MECHANICAL RESPONSE OF METALLIZED ELECTROSPUN POLYMERIC MATS AND FOAMS FOR FILTER APPLICATIONS

摘要

Polymeric non-woven structures for filters are often formed from wet-laid melt blown or spun-bounded fibers, where the polymeric fibers are on the order of microns in diameter. Ultra-filtration applications use finer diameter fibers (100s to 1000 nm) which can be formed via electrospinning. In these cases, composite filter structures have been shown to enhance flow rates of fluids by tailoring multiple polymeric structures of mixed spacing, diameters, and hydrophobicity [1]. Adding anti-microbial functionality to these filters has been achieved through the addition of metallic nanoparticles, such as silver. The particles have been introduced by a variety of methods, ranging from incorporating silver nitrate and subsequently precipitating silver nanoparticles during electrospinning [2] to simple immersion. Silver is not the only metal that exhibits antimicrobial properties; copper has also been shown to exhibit antimicrobial applications when present in nanoparticle form [3].