Electrospinning of Micro- and Nanofibers: Fundamentals in Separation and Filtration Processes

Atmospheric pollution caused by the uncontrolled development of industrial technologies, has now reached the danger point, past which its irreversible effect on natural factors and the resulting danger to living organisms and to future human generations starts to outweigh the advantages of technological progress. The increase in the appearance and development of ecology-damaging industries such as nuclear power generation, modern chemistry and biotechnologies, have resulted in the appearance of so-called ecology-protection technologies. The danger of environmental pollution, leads to the optimal selection of environmental protection technologies, and monitoring their effectiveness lies outside the competence of those who design and operate polluting industries, and becomes increasingly more the prerogative of special expert and monitoring services. High-efficiency gas purification by Petryanov filters is one such universally acknowledged aerosol-removal technology. These filters are made of fibrous materials obtained by means of electrospinning. The substance and capabilities of this method, the use of the fibrous materials produced by it, the various and unique separating properties are examined in this volume. The following topics are explored: Mechanism of electrospinning of fibrous materials and the structure of these materials; raw materials; the effect of the properties of the spinning solution on the course of formation and properties of fibres; the technology of electrospinning of fibrous materials (Petryanov Filters) and their analogues; the relationships governing the capture of aerosol particles by fibrous filters; functional and performance properties of Petryanov-Filter (PF) materials and of their analogues; construction, testing, manufacturing and assortment of fibrous PF-materials based high-efficiency aerosol filters; and applications of modular high-efficiency aerosol filters and filtering stations employing PF filtering materials and their analogues for high-efficiency gas filtration. This monograph will be useful not only to design and production engineers but also to a number of other experts, whose activity in the scientific, industrial, managerial, judicial, educational and humanitarian fields is related to some extent to the problem of protecting the environment and the health of the population.