Development and performance study of polypropylene/polyester bicomponent melt‐blowns for filtration

Abstract

Abstract In this study, a new type of polypropylene (PP)/polyester (PET) bicomponent melt‐blown (bi‐MB) for filtration was developed through the melt‐blowing process with raw materials of melt‐blown (MB)‐grade PP and PET chips. The structure, porosity, and filtration performance of the bi‐MBs were tested through relevant instruments. The results show that the average fiber diameter in the bi‐MBs was 2–3.5 μm, the average pore size was 12.3–15.6 μm, and the porosity was 90–94%. The results also show that the filtration efficiency of the bi‐MBs was much higher than that of monocomponent PP MBs. It reached the highest value of 97.34% when the PP/PET ratio was 50/50 and could be used as high‐performance filter media. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012