Super-hydrophobic blended needle-punched nonwovens integrated with silica-aerogels for PM2.5 filtration

This study investigated the hydrophobic and PM2.5 filtration properties of blended needle-punched nonwovens with the treatment of silica-aerogel. The treatment was done by padding. The BET, SEM and FTIR studies were used to investigate the influence of silica-aerogel on needle-punched nonwovens such as surface properties and molecular interaction. All the treated samples showed super-hydrophobic properties with water contact angle (WCA) of around 154.2 - 154.79o, filtration efficiency of 99.07 - 99.21%, pressure drop of 72.83 - 79.71 Pa and dust-holding capacity of 3,459,520 - 3,472,060 particles/cm2. The findings demonstrated that silica-aerogel played a vital role in enhancing the hydrophobicity, filtration efficiency, dust-holding capacity and fabric density of blended needle-punched nonwovens with statistically significant performance (p<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in pressure drop, air permeability, porosity, and fabric thickness, which indicated that the treated samples could perform without structure loss as compared to the untreated.