Investigation of electret and filtering properties of polypropylene-based nonwoven fabrics and its composites with 2 vol% of silicon dioxide inclusions

The electret characteristics of polypropylene (PP) nonwoven fabrics processed by melt-blowing and its composites with 2 vol% of silicon dioxide (SiO2) are studied in this work. The surface potential Ve, effective surface charge density aef and electric field strengths E as well as their filtration efficiency are reported. Improvement of electret properties of PP filled with SiO2 in comparison with the samples without filler is observed. It is seen that PP samples poled in a corona discharge show lower filtration rate than the non-poled ones. The electret nonwoven fabrics with improved filtration characteristics are obtained on the basis of PP with SiO2 inclusions.