Electrospinning Technology for Filtering Membranes Fabrication

Filtration is simple, versatile, and economical means to recruit and confine sub-micrometric or nanometric particles and ions, that is, aerosol, water, and air pollutants--in order to provide a highly efficient process for air/water cleaning. Indeed, the growing amount of toxic particles with a large specific surface area, mainly related to increasing combustion emissions in the external environment, is drastically reducing population life quality, due to the ease of crossing human body barriers--through inhalation and absorption. In the last two decades, rapid improvements in nanotechnology are opening new perspectives for the development of innovative filters with permeability properties able to more efficaciously prevent the release of nanoparticles in the atmosphere, soil, or water environments. In particular, electrospinning is emerging as one of the most versatile and cost-effective technologies to design fibrous filtering devices, capable of removing sub-micrometric/nanometric-sized pollutants from gas streams, drastically improving the current efficiency of commercial filters (up to 90-99%). Herein, an overview of the current technological strategies based on electrospinning will be introduced in order to discuss future challenges and trends in the use of electrospun membranes as innovative nano-porous membranes for filtering applications.