Polypropylene – zinc oxide nanorod hybrid material for applications in separation processes

Hybrid filter material was obtained via modification of polypropylene (PP) nonwoven with nanosize zinc oxide particles of a high aspect ratio. Modification was conducted as a three-step process, a variant of hydrothermal method used for synthesis of nano-ZnO, adopted for coating three dimensional polymeric nonwoven filters. The process consisted of plasma treatment of nonwoven to increase its wettability, deposition of ZnO nanoparticles and low temperature hydrothermal growth of ZnO rods. The modified nonwovens were investigated by a high resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM). It has been found that the obtained hybrid filters offer a higher filtration efficiency, in particular for so called most penetrating particle sizes.