Inovenso Supplies Electrospinning Machines for Masks

Hifyber Partners with Hebei FuXin Purification Equipment Co., Ltd

Elmarco Supplied Nanofiber  Production Line to Abalioglu Teknoloji for Nanofiber Media Production in 2015 in Turkey

Electrospinning Versus Coating of Nanofibers

Lydall Uses Nanofibers in its Solupor Membrane

MERV 16 Better than HEPA Filters for Mining Cabs

Nederman Extractors for Dental Offices

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Inovenso Supplies Electrospinning Machines for Masks

Inovenso Inc. has produced more than 350+ devices around the world and creates nanotechnology ecosystems with its multidisciplinary departments and teams. The references include universities, such as MIT, Stanford, Cornell and worldwide companies such as 3M, Honeywell and many others.

The company  offers a wide range of electrospinning machine options in three main categories; Laboratory Scale, Semi-Industrial and Industrial Scale Nanofiber production machines. Inovenso is currently manufacturing needle-based, hybrid, single-nozzle and multi-nozzle electrospinning devices and their accessories.

Three sizes are available for mask production in two efficiency ranges.

 

Construction

Outer layer: PET Spunbond 35 g/m2
Inner layer: Nanofibers layer of polymer PVDF 0.6/0.8 g/m2
Outer layer: PET Spunbond 35 g/m2

Comes with a 300 to 1000mm width rolls

Media can be produced with specific properties like hydrophobic, antibacterial, different colors on demand.

 

Hifyber Partners with Hebei FuXin Purification Equipment Co., Ltd

Hifyber, a manufacturer of Nano Fiber Filtration media has partnered with Hebei FuXin Purification Equipment Co., Ltd for sales supports, warehousing, and converting in China.

Hifyber has a unique innovative approach to in-house capabilities of producing a wide range of custom made nanofiber filtration media. Hifyber is capable of slitting master rolls, laminating to produce multilayer materials, corrugating to extend the surface area of the material, and extremely durable coating with nanofibers all with a dedicated goal to deliver consistency throughout a product portfolio that is high-strength and peak performance. Hifyber can also perform most of the filtration tests requested and required at their in-house laboratory.

Hifyber is part of the Turkish holding company Abalioglu, which has 2,500 employees with $1.3 billion in USD turnover, operating on four continents.  Hifyber is focused on producing proprietary nanofibers for various filtration applications including primarily facemask, gas turbine air intake, industrial dust collection, HVAC as well as other applications such as engine intake, cabin air, and customer specified composites. Hifyber’s filtration efficiencies range from Merv.13-16, F7 – E12, and H13.

 

Elmarco Supplied Nanofiber Production Line to  Abalioglu Teknoloji for Nanofiber Media Production in 2015 in Turkey

Elmarco supplied 1.6 m production line with a complete set of peripherals for high volume roll-to-roll operation. The technology enabled Abalioglu Teknoloji to enter the market and to deliver high performance nanofibers under their own brand Hifyber.

“On top of Elmarco’s unique Nanospider technology, our seven years of expertise and know-how in nanofiber technology delivers outstanding features such as narrow fibre diameter distribution, controlled pore size and superior adhesion, thus numerous industries can benefit from our Hifyber materials,” said  Ozdemir Aydin, Abalioglu Teknoloji General Manager.

The nanofiber production line is based on Elmarco’s NS 8S1600U, industrial operation proven spinning unit. The unit uses needle-free electrospinning Nanospider technology that is designed for high volume production with long time shifts in roll-to-roll operation. “We delivered a complete 1.6 m technology for nanofiber production, to ensure customer’s need for industrial operation and to prove our turn-key delivery capability,” says Miloslav Masopust, Managing Director, Elmarco Czech Republic. Elmarco’s turn-key nanofiber production line included adhesion treatment and Nanospider air conditioning unit which are necessary for fine fibre manufacturing.

Cooperation between Abalioglu Teknoloji and Elmarco brought not only the first industrial nanofiber technology in Turkey, but also improved availability of nanofiber materials on global market.

Electrospinning Versus Coating of Nanofibers

Hollingsworth & Vose says strength and endurance enable H&V’s Nanoweb synthetic media to excel where other nanofibers may fail. “With superior structure, Nanoweb represents an improvement in existing nanofiber technology that surpasses industry performance standards with enhanced efficiency”.  McIlvaine looked for details on the H&V approach versus electrospinning  and found only an older analysis  which may be outdated. but it is a staring point for a discussion of the alternatives.

In 2008 Hollingsworth & Vose made a comparison between electrospinning and their coating technology.  Electrospinning involves the use of a hypodermic needle, nozzle, capillary, or movable emitter. These tools provide liquid solutions of the polymer that are then attracted to a collection zone by a high-voltage electrostatic field. As the dissolved polymer and solvents are pulled from the emitter and accelerated through the electrostatic zone, fibers are formed through a process of solvent evaporation. While electrospinning is effective for producing nanofibers, it has drawbacks.

At the outset, electrospinning is a very slow process for producing nanofibers on a commercial scale, which increases manufacturing costs. Electrospinning also produces a largely two-dimensional structure that lacks depth or z-directionality. While this configuration is desirable for surface loading, it has limited capability for depth-loading applications. Electrospun nanofibers tend to be fairly weak and can be easily damaged or dislodged from the substrate. There remains a need for enhanced nanofibers that overcome the deficiencies of current electrospun nanofibers.

New Nanofiber Technology: A newly developed, solvent-free nanofiber coating technology can offer greater flexibility, control, and durability compared to the traditional process of electrospinning. This new nanofiber coating is formed from fibers typically ranging from 0.3 to 0.5 microns in size but can be increased up to 1 micron. The fiber diameter distribution and layer thickness can easily be varied according to the application requirements. A wide range of filtration media can be improved through the use of this nanofiber technology.

This new nanofiber layer has a thickness in the range of 15 to 30 microns and is applied directly to the macro filtration substrate. When supplied as a standalone substrate, the nanofiber web has a thickness of between 100 and 200 microns. The nanofiber coating can be applied to any nonwoven base material, such as glass, cellulose, or synthetic fibers, while electrospinning is dependent on critical resins for adhesion.

A second nanofiber layer of a similar or different polymer can also be applied as a coating. The particular configuration of the substrate will depend on the specific application of the filter media and can be varied to achieve the desired structural properties, including stiffness, strength, pleatablility, and temperature resistance. As indicated, the configuration of the support or base layer can vary depending on the intended use.

For heavy-duty air, gas turbine, automotive air, and pulse-cleaning applications, the support is preferably a wet-laid paper, such as cellulose or a synthetic/cellulose blend. In other markets such as HVAC, liquid, cabin air filters, and HEPA filtration, supports can include wet-laid cellulose, glass, synthetic, carded, spunbond, and meltblown nonwovens.

Various nanofiber layers can be positioned at different locations in the filter media according to the application. For example, the nanofiber layer can be positioned upstream, before the macro filtration substrate to enhance surface filtration performance in a gas turbine or heavy-duty air application. The nanofiber layer can be positioned downstream of the macro filtration substrate to improve depth filtration in order to capture particles within the body of the media.

Measurements of nanofiber-coated material clearly demonstrate much better cleanability behavior of the material compared to standard cellulose material. Filter media for cleanable applications have two main functions: To ensure no particles penetrate or pass through the media and to have very high-efficiency filtration. For gas turbine applications, high-efficiency material protects the sensitive blades of the turbine from dust particles. In industrial cleaning applications, the clean air should have no contaminants as it is circulated through the building.

The test results of uncoated cellulose, cellulose base media coated with electrospun nanofibers, and a cellulose base media with the new nanofiber coating are compared in the table below. Advantages are shown for fine particle efficiency, fine dust efficiency, and panel air efficiency with a light nanofiber coating over a typical auto air media, similar to the impact of applying an electrospun coating. With the ability to add additional fine fiber mass economically, the thickness of the new nanofiber coating can be adjusted, providing ‘dial-in’ performance. With this added flexibility, the technical specifications of nanofiber composite can be fine-tuned to meet application requirements.

The following table on Depth filtration provides a comparison of typical uncoated auto air cellulose and electrospinning media to enhanced nanofiber-coated media using flat sheet testing and element testing (panel air).

Strength and endurance enable H&V’s Nanoweb synthetic media to excel where other nanofibers may fail. With superior structure, Nanoweb represents an improvement in existing nanofiber technology that surpasses industry performance standards with enhanced efficiency.
 

Lydall Uses Nanofibers in its Solupor Membrane

Geoff Crosby was a panelist in our gas turbine intake webinar a few years ago and persented this graph showing the energy reduciton advantages.

 

Lydall has a recent patent on a filter media with nanofibers.

COMPOSITE FILTER MEDIA INCLUDING A NANOFIBER LAYER FORMED DIRECTLY ONTO A CONDUCTIVE LAYER

Abstract: A composite filter media of a nanofiber layer that includes nanofibers formed from non-polar, non-conductive thermoplastic polymers using a solution spinning process to form the nanofibers directly onto a conductive layer is presented, along with the associated methodology for making such media. The conductive layer includes at least about greater than about 5 wt. % conductive fibers, Z-directional conductivity and a uniform surface conductivity of at least about 10-7 microsiemens.

Type: Application

Filed: March 3, 2016

Publication date: September 8, 2016

Applicant: LYDALL, INC.

Inventors: Robert G. Sanders, Stephen Edward Gross, Timothy Scott Lintz

 

With the need for higher efficiencies to capture the COVID virus, filtration media used in gas turbines needs to be evaluated.  Turbine operators are finding that HEPA filters save turbine maintenance and are a better choice than less efficient filters.  The E12 efficiency will also be much better at capturing viruses. 

Arioso^® high performance air filtration composite media is suited for gas turbine air intakes, where end users value high efficiency filtration for reduced cleaning, less downtime, and maximum energy output. Suitable for pulsed and static applications, Arioso media delivers E10 to E12 efficiency at low resistance.
 

Arioso media delivers extremely low pressure drop to high efficiency filters, .Arioso media contains no fluoropolymers or halogens, allowing for the potential of incineration or recycling?

Arioso high performance air filtration composites incorporate Solupor^® membranes, a proprietary UPE (ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene) membrane technology. These composite structures deliver high efficiency products with low resistance to air flow, tailored to individual application and processing needs.

Engineered from a chemically inert and highly durable polymer, the Solupor membrane is laminated to a support layer to form a composite that is mechanically robust. Numerous functional support layers and/or prefilter materials are available to tailor the composite structure to individual processing and application requirements.

Arioso composite media is currently available in efficiencies from F9/MERV 15, up through H14.

At the heart of  Arioso membrane composites is the strong, microporous Solupor UPE membrane, which combines structural microfibers with internal nanofibers for excellent strength, high efficiency and low pressure-drop.

Solupor membranes are lightweight, high-performance membranes developed from many years of experience in micro-porous film technology development. Solupor membranes combine controlled pore-size distribution and air permeability with high filtration efficiency, chemical resistance and inertness.

Arioso air filtration membrane composites benefit highly from the structural integrity inherent in Solupor membrane technology. This structure allows the selection of functional support layers based solely upon application and processing requirements.

Current support layers available are wet-laid glass or polyester, spunbond polyester or polypropylene, and needlefelts. Multiple thickness and stiffness options are available to tailor the composite to application needs.                             

 

MERV 16 Better than HEPA Filters for Mining Cabs

It is helpful to view the choices being made in various industries and apply them to the COVID problem.  The following paper concludes that MERV 16 is nearly as efficient as HEPAs on the mining dust.  However, this is not surprising because the dust is mechanically generated and most is above 1 micron in size.

Significant strides have been made in optimizing the design of filtration and pressurization systems used on the enclosed cabs of mobile mining equipment to reduce respirable dust and provide the best air quality to the equipment operators. Considering all of the advances made in this area, one aspect that still needed to be evaluated was a comparison of the efficiencies of the different filters used in these systems.

As high-efficiency particulate arrestance (HEPA) filters provide the highest filtering efficiency, the general assumption would be that they would also provide the greatest level of protection to workers. Researchers for the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) speculated, based upon a previous laboratory study, that filters with minimum efficiency reporting value, or MERV rating, of 16 may be a more appropriate choice than HEPA filters in most cases for the mining industry. A study was therefore performed comparing HEPA and MERV 16 filters on two kinds of underground limestone mining equipment, a roof bolter and a face drill, to evaluate this theory. Testing showed that, at the 95-percent confidence level, there was no statistical difference between the efficiencies of the two types of filters on the two kinds of mining equipment.

As the MERV 16 filters were less restrictive, provided greater airflow and cab pressurization, cost less and required less-frequent replacement than the HEPA filters, the MERV 16 filters were concluded to be the optimal choice for both the roof bolter and the face drill in this comparative-analysis case study. Another key finding of this study is the substantial improvement in the effectiveness of filtration and pressurization systems when using a final filter design

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4982552/

Nederman Extractors for Dental Offices

Nederman's expertise in exhaust ventilation solutions features the versatile FX₂ extractions arms to give dental professionals a simple, convenient way to reduce health risks and increase worker and patient safety by removing aerosols generated by routine dental procedures. These solutions offer effective capture of potentially hazardous aerosols in an easy-to-use and aesthetically attractive package ideal for dental office settings.

"In referencing guidelines from the CDC, it's crucial to implement engineering controls to reduce or eliminate exposure from aerosol generating procedures (AGPs)," says Travis Haynam, Vice President, Segments for Nederman. "That's especially true for dentists and dental hygienists, whose work requires close contact with patients and the use of high-speed tools and processes that produce aerosols. Nederman is honored to provide clean air products and solutions that help create a safer working environment."

While healthcare professionals are still researching how COVID-19 spreads, research indicates that bacteria or viruses like COVID-19 can survive in bio-aerosols for extended periods of time.

"Dentists are aware that it's possible for aerosols to transmit diseases," says Haynam. "And because these aerosols stay suspended in the air for extended periods of time, many dentists are taking proactive steps to protect themselves, their staff and their patients from potentially harmful airborne aerosols."

Nederman's FX₂ aerosol control solution is a flexible, ceiling-mounted extraction arm that is easy to maneuver and position so, once it's installed, the arm can be located near the patient to effectively capture the aerosol at the source and can be easily moved out of the way when no longer in use.

Aerosol extraction is just one method dentists are using to improve safety after Stay-at-Home orders are rolled back. The American Dental Association (ADA) advises that dentists must fully utilize available PPE, understanding that surgical masks, which do not seal around the nose and mouth, are not adequate to completely protect against aerosol-borne disease transmission. To further reduce risks, the ADA advises reducing aerosol production as much as possible.

"As a clean air products and solutions provider, Nederman is ready to help simplify the process to remove hazardous aerosols that could lead to respiratory infections," Haynam states.

Nederman's aerosol control solutions include an FX₂ ceiling mount extraction arm, a ceiling mounting bracket with cover plate, a fan and optional HEPA filter for single- or multi-chair operatory arrangements. Nederman also offers custom engineering and installation planning to provide the best clean air solutions to meet the need.