Preparação e caracterização de filtros de TNT incorporados com Óxido de Grafeno para coleta de Material Particulado atmosférico

Abstract

Poor air quality has adverse effects on climate, ecosystems, and human health. Airborne particulate matter (PM) is one of the main atmospheric pollutants, and poses a serious threat to health, being associated with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, in addition to an increased rate of mortality. Among the different particle sizes, those with less than 100 nm (PM0.1) undergo transformations like size modifications, structure, and chemical composition due to their high surface area and reactivity, being precursors of harmful and persistent particles. Among the control technologies, filters and membranes containing Graphene Oxide (GO) have a high capacity to capture PM. Thus, this work aims at the fabrication, characterization, and analysis of the filtration of particulate through polypropylene nonwoven fabric (NWF-PP) filters incorporated with GO. Therefore, commercial meltblown filters modification with the surfactant Pluronic F-127 and GO occurred by two techniques: spraying and immersion, generating a nanostructured coating over the microfibers. The GO flakes characterization was performed through atomic force microscopy (AFM). While the filters morphologies and composition were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), contact profilometry, Raman spectrometry, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and tensiometry for contact angle measurement. SEM images show the fibers conformation, as well as the evolution of the film formation from GO spray layers deposition. The NWF-PP filters also had their particle capture efficiency evaluated by a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS). In this context, the filtration efficiency of PM0.1 is higher in the functionalized filter medium (80.4%) in comparison with the uncovered filter (66.2%) due to the presence of oxygen-containing functional groups. In addition to low pressure drop (18.6 Pa) and quality factor ~0.086 Pa-1 for gas flow rate at 1.5 L/min. Thus, the incorporation protocol turned out to be efficient in the enhancement of the filter medium, emerging as a viable and promising strategy for new materials development.