Surface potential decay characterization of non-woven electret filter media

Electric charging of the non-woven electret filter media leads to increased particle collection efficiency. Estimation of the charge state of the media can be done by measuring its surface potential. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effects of the factors that influence the surface potential decay characteristics of these media: the grid potential of the triode-type corona electrode system employed for the electric charging, the active carbon, the ambient relative humidity and the temperature at which the media are thermally pre-conditioned. The experiments were carried out on two types of samples, one of which includes an active carbon layer between two 400 μm thick layers of non - woven polypropylene fibers, the diameter of each fiber being approximately 20 μm. The results show that the surface potential values increase with the increasing of the electric potential of the grid. Thus, if the grid potential Vg increases from 3 to 10 kV, the surface potential value increases over 3 times. A 20% increase of the surface potential values is also recorded in the case of thermally conditioned samples. The surface potential decreases by roughly 10% in the case of the samples with carbon layer, and by about 20%, and in the case of relative humidity increase from 21% to 80%.