Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Aerosol Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaerosci A mathematical model to predict the effect of electrospinning processing parameters on the morphological characteristic of nano- fibrous web and associated filtration efficiency Nagham Ismail a , Fouad Junior Maksoud b , Nesreen Ghaddar a, ⁎ , Kamel Ghali a , Ali Tehrani-Bagha b a Mechanical Engineering Department, American University of Beirut, P.O. Box 11-0236, Beirut 1107-2020, Lebanon b Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, American University of Beirut, PO Box 11-236, Beirut 1107-2020, Lebanon ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Nano-fibrous web Electrospinning Morphological properties Filtration efficiency ABSTRACT A robust simplified method was developed to study the effect of electrospinning processing parameters on the morphological properties of electrospun nano-fibrous web, its air perme- ability, and filtration efficiency against aerosol particles. The developed predictive model related the electrospinning processing parameters to the nano-fibrous web properties. The model was validated experimentally and then is used to study the effect of each electrospinning processing parameters (flow rate, electric field, concentration, and time of electrospinning) on the nano- fibrous web properties. For example, it is shown that only 20 min of electrospinning is able to reduce the air permeability by 66% while one hour of electrospinning coating time is able to increase the filtration efficiency to reach 100% for a range of aerosol particle diameters from 300 to 1000 nm. The validated systematic model is used for developing design charts that allow the determination of the desired air permeability and the filtration performance of the nano-fibrous web from the electrospinning parameters and vice versa within a wide range of feasible pro- cessing parameters and fiber diameters. 1. Introduction Over the last two decades, the rapid development of the nanotechnology resulted in great progress, not only in the preparation of nanofibers, but also in their functional applications (Fang, Wang, & Li, 2011). Currently, the most interesting applications are identified in the following functional areas: biomedical, energy harvest and storage, and environmental protection (Fang et al., 2011). The environmental protection is considered of great importance since current environmental problems have serious negative impacts on human health (Haines, Kovats, Campbell-Lendrum, & Corvalan, 2006). Nanofibers are expected to be used in the filtration of pollutant substances from air or liquid due to their high specific surface area (Barhate & Ramakrishna, 2007). Furthermore, the high porosity, the low basis weight, and the small pore size make the nanofibers appropriate to be used in garments for protective clothing (Lee & Obendorf, 2007). Another important feature of nanofibers in protective garment is its high air permeability compared to most conventional protective clothing material currently available (Lee & Obendorf, 2007). A number of processing techniques have been used to prepare polymeric nanofibers (Huang, Zhang, Kotaki, & Ramakrishna, 2003). Among these techniques is the electrospinning process which is a simple and convenient technique for production of http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaerosci.2017.08.013 Received 22 June 2016; Received in revised form 6 March 2017; Accepted 26 August 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: farah@aub.edu.lb (N. Ghaddar). Journal of Aerosol Science 113 (2017) 227–241 0021-8502/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. MARK