Anti-deformed Polyacrylonitrile/Polysulfone Composite Membrane with Binary Structures for Effective Air Filtration

Airborne particle filtration proposed for fibers requires their assembly into porous structures with small pore size and low packing density. The ability to maintain structural stability upon deformation stress in service is essential to ensure a highly porous packing material that functions reliably; however, it has proven extremely challenging. Here, we report a strategy to create anti-deformed poly(ethylene oxide)@polyacrylonitrile/polysulfone (PEO@PAN/PSU) composite membranes with binary structures for effective air filtration by combining multijet electrospinning and physical bonding process. Our approach allows the ambigenous fiber framework including thin PAN nanofibers and fluffy PSU microfibers, through which run interpenetrating PEO bonding structures, to assemble into stable filtration medium with tunable pore size and packing density by facilely optimizing the bimodal fiber construction and benefiting from the PEO inspiration. With the integrated features of small pore size, high porosity, and robust mechanical properties (8.2 MPa), the resultant composite membrane exhibits high filtration efficiency of 99.992%, low pressure drop of 95 Pa, and desirable quality factor of 0.1 Pa–1; more significantly, it successfully gets rid of the potential safety hazards caused by unexpected structural collapsing under service stress. The synthesis of PEO@PAN/PSU medium would not only make it a promising candidate for PM2.5 governance but also provide a versatile strategy to design and develop stable porous membranes for various applications.