A Review of Electrospun Nanofber Membranes

Document Type : Review Paper

Author

Ministry of the Environment and University of Toronto

Abstract

Electrospun nanofber membranes (ENMs) are new generation of membranes with many favorable properties such as high flux and low pressure drop. Although electrospinning has been known for more than a century, its applications in fltration and separation processes are relatively new. Electrospinning has provided the means to produce ultrathin fbers – as thin as a few nanometers – that can be used in preparing membranes with small and defned pore sizes. In addition, due to the small fber diameter ENMs exhibit high surface area to volume ratio, making them suitable adsorption media with enhanced capacity compared with conventional adsorbents. This paper familiarizes the reader with the history and laboratory-scale preparation of ENMs, discusses parameters that influence properties of the fbers and the fnal membranes, and introduces a number of applications in which, ENMs have exhibited superior performances compared to competing conventional processes.

Graphical Abstract

A Review of Electrospun Nanofber Membranes

Highlights

• A new generation of membranes offering higher flux at lower applied pressure
• Highly porous with interconnected pores
• High specifc surface area, suitable for adsorption applications
• Have found applications in water treatment, air cleaning, membrane distillation, among many other uses

Keywords

Main Subjects

Journal of Membrane Science and Research
Volume 3, Issue 3
July 2017
Pages 228-239

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 12 January 2017
  • Revise Date: 11 March 2017
  • Accept Date: 13 March 2017

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