Systems and methods for making fibrous materials

Abstract

Systems, devices and methods are provided for producing fibrous materials and products, such as filters. A system comprises a first device for generating one or more fiber stream(s), and a second device for isolating nanoparticles within a gaseous medium. The second device forms the nanoparticles into a stream and feeds this stream into the fiber streams to form the fibrous material. This distributes the nanoparticles more uniformly throughout the fibrous material. In addition, the nanoparticles increase the overall surface area within the material, which, in certain applications, increases its filtration efficiency and allows for the capture of submicron contaminants without significantly compromising other factors, such as pressure drop through the filter. Filters produced with these systems and methods are capable of withstanding rigorous conditioning, which allows the filter to achieve substantially the same level of filtration performance throughout the lifetime of the filter.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.