Bioinspired Honeycomb-Structured Nanofibrous Membranes with High Transparency and Excellent Breathability for High-Efficiency PM0.3 Capture

Particulate matter (PM) pollution has become a major public health concern. Particularly, PM0.3 in the air can cause significant damage to the human respiratory system. However, traditional air filtration materials, due to their limited protective functions, are facing challenges such as poor environmental adaptability, low transparency, and difficulties in balancing filtration efficiency with pressure drop. Inspired by the honeycomb structures and transparent dragonfly wings, this study successfully fabricated a bioinspired honeycomb-structured nanofibrous membranes (NFMs) using template-assisted electrospinning. By optimizing the mesh size of receiver, a directional distribution of the electric field was established on the receiver, promoting the simultaneous concentrated ordered stacking and sparse random orientation of fine-diameter nanofibers. This synergistic strategy of structural optimization and electric field modulation enables NFMs to achieve an optimal balance between filtration efficiency, pressure drop, environmental adaptability and transparency. Utilizing filtration mechanisms involving Brownian diffusion, electrostatic adsorption and physical interception, the honeycomb-structured NFMs achieved a filtration efficiency of over 98.51% for PM0.3, with a pressure drop of only 34 Pa, whilst maintaining high transparency (85%) and high air permeability (130.8 mm/s). This bioinspired honeycomb-structured NFMs demonstrates broad application prospects in the field of air purification and offers novel insights for the development of multifunctional air filtration materials.