Nonwoven polymeric nanofibers

The current material system for protective clothes usually adopts a multilayer composite structure. An activated carbon-based chemical vapor filtration medium, a nonwoven or woven fabric, and a cover top layer are often incorporated. There is an opportunity to improve the performance of this system through the incorporation of one or several layers of nonwoven polymeric nanofiber mats. The polymeric... 

An optimal protective cloth should be able to preveut infiltratiou of aerosols (e.g., chemical/biochemical agent microdroplets, bacteria, virus, radioactive dust, etc.) and at the same time must be highly permeable to the air and water vapor to improve wearer comfort. Nonwoven polymeric nanofibers are a natural fit for this application due to their enormous surface area and microscale pore size. By physical absorption and exclusion, the nanofiber mat can provide an impermeable barrier to toxic chemical agents, that is lightweight with remarkable breathing properties [17,18]. 

Fennessey, S. F., A. Pedicini, and R. J. Farris (2006). Mechanical behavior of nonwoven electrospun fabrics and yams. In Polymeric Nanofibers. ACS Symposium Series 918. Edited by D. H. Reneker and H. Fong. Oxford University Press (USA), p. 403. 

Grafe, T., Graham, K., 2002. Polymeric nanofibers and nanofiber webs a new class of nonwo-vens. In International Nonwovens Technical Conference, Atlanta, USA. 

S. Nair, E. Hsiao, and S. H. Kim Fabrication of electrically-conducting nonwoven porous mats of polystyrene-polypyrrole core-shell nanofibers via electrospinning and vapor phase polymerization, J. Mater. Chem., 18, 5155-5161 (2008). 

Choi et al. [175] showed that composite polyanline nanofibers could be fabricated in which doped polyaniline is deposited onto electrospun silica nanofibers using either an in situ polymerization technique, or immersing the electrospun nonwoven mat into a solution of doped polyaniline dissolved in chloroform or NMP. The silica nanofibers were electrospun from a ripened tetraethyl orthosilicate solution. It was found that polyaniKne composite electrospun fibers prepared by the in situ polymerization had a more uniform polyaniline coating than those prepared by immersing the nonwoven mat into the polyaniline solution. 

DuPont nanofiber-based separators go beyond the hmit of traditional nonwovens and microporous membranes to provide thinner separators with lower ionic resistance and higher temperature stability for use in wide range of energy storage devices. Made by a proprietary spinning process, DuPont nanofiber sheets contain continuous polymeric filaments in a thin, uniform web of randomly oriented nanofibers that are ideal for separators. The innovative manufacturing process dehvers a uniform web at high... 

Lee et al. explored the application of zinc oxide nanoparticles to polypropylene nonwoven fabrics via electrospinning as one approach to impart UV-protective properties. In addition, moisture and air vapor transport characteristics of layered clothing systems with various levels of electrospun mat area density are assessed to observe the consequence of electrospun web layers on thermal comfort level of the layered structures (Fig. 14.6c) [56]. Ultrafine cellulose fibers from natural cotton lines, whose degree of polymerization was above 10,000, were electrospun. The cellulose nanotibers treated with the hydrothermal incorporation of Ce02 nanoparticles into the nanofiber substrate surface showed good UV-shielding properties... 

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