JP2002102620A - Air filter - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an air filter easy to wash off dust, capable of responding to a circulating type environmental system. SOLUTION: A filter medium 1 for collecting dust in air is impregnated with a surfactant 2 and, after the impregnated filter medium is dried, the dust adsorbed on the surface treated filter medium 1A is washed off to reproduce the surface treated filter medium 1A. The air filter capable of being washed a plurality of times to be made reutilizable can be obtained.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a cleanable air filter mounted on an air conditioner or an air purifier used in buildings, factories and the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, it has been desired to reduce and recycle an air filter mounted on a large-sized air conditioner or the like. However, it took a long time to clean dust adhering to the air filter, and it was difficult to remove the dust, which was not enough, and the air filter could not be used repeatedly.

[0003] Also, cleaning mop, tapping, dustproof mat, etc. are known as those which can be washed and reused. However, the material of this kind is tough and easy to handle at the time of washing. On the other hand, an air filter must be formed of a material through which air can pass to remove dust in the air.Cleaning mop, tapping, dustproof mats, etc. and air filters also differ in the type of dust to be removed and the dust adhesion status It was completely different from the air filter in terms of conditions and technical field.

[0004]

With such a conventional air filter, there is a problem that the attached dust is still not sufficiently cleaned, and it is difficult to remove carbon black in particular, and it is also possible to remove carbon black. It is required to do so.

[0005] Further, there is a problem that it is necessary to be able to cope with a circulating environment system such as waste reduction, reuse, resource saving and cost reduction. Has been requested.

An object of the present invention is to solve such a conventional problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide an air filter which can be easily used for dust cleaning and can be used in a circulating environment system.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, an air filter of the present invention comprises a filter medium made of a nonwoven fabric for collecting dust in the air, an aerosol OT or a sulfonate anionic surfactant, or A nonionic surfactant of a fatty acid, and a surface-treated filter medium obtained by immersing the surfactant in the filter medium and dried, and washing the dust collected by the surface-treated filter medium with the surface-treated filter medium. This is configured to be removed.

According to the present invention, an air filter which can be used in a circulating environment system and is easy to clean dust can be obtained.

[0009]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a filter medium made of a nonwoven fabric for collecting dust in the air, an aerosol OT or a sulfonate anionic surfactant, or a nonionic surfactant of a fatty acid. An air purifying apparatus comprising a surface-treated filter medium in which an activator is immersed in the filter medium and dried, and dust collected by the surface-treated filter medium is removed by washing the surface-treated filter medium. When washing the surface-treated filter medium used for the surface treatment, the surfactant immersed in the filter medium can easily remove the dust collected at the time of washing, and has an effect that the dust adhered to the surface of the filter medium does not remain. .

Further, a dry nonwoven fabric having rigidity and dust retention performance, and a fiber diameter of 10 μm exhibiting filter performance are provided.
It has a filter medium joined to the following ultra-fine fiber non-woven fabric in a two-layer structure, and collects coarse dust by a dry non-woven fabric having dust retention performance and dust collection rate by collecting fine dust by an ultra-fine fiber non-woven fabric And the fine particles can be reliably washed away by the surfactant.

[0011] The present invention also provides a filter medium formed by bonding a dry nonwoven fabric in a cotton blend of a hydrophilic nonwoven vinylon and a hydrophobic nonwoven polyester and a polypropylene ultrafine fiber nonwoven fabric having a fiber diameter of 10 µ or less into a two-layer structure. The use of vinylon, which is highly resistant to oil and oil, is resistant to oil stains, and has the effect that water adhering to vinylon dissolves the surfactant, so that dust can be easily washed off from the surface of the filter medium.

Further, a moisture-curable urethane-based resin is used as a joining means for joining to a two-layer structure, and the moisture-curable urethane-based resin is used after curing after being cured by applying a surfactant to a filter medium or washing. The surfactant is stable without chemical reaction even if it is acidic or alkaline, and has the effect of maintaining the adhesiveness between filter media against repeated washing of the filter due to its water resistance, and maintaining the two-layer filter shape. .

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

[0014]

(Embodiment 1) As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2,
The air filter of the present embodiment is a filter medium 1 formed of a nonwoven fabric.
A surfactant 2 is immersed in the filter and used as a dust collecting filter for an air conditioner or the like. After the dust in the atmosphere is collected, the dust is collected and the filter medium 1 is washed, and the filter medium 1 is collected.
The process can be regenerated by repeating the process of dipping and drying the surfactant 2 again. Rayon, vinylon, nylon, polyester,
Uses synthetic fibers such as acrylic and polypropylene.

The following surfactants 2 are used. 1. 1. Anionic surfactant 2. Nonionic surfactant 3. Zwitterionic surfactants Cationic surfactant

Further, as a feature of each surfactant, anionic surfactants generally have strong washing action and excellent stability and are often used as detergents, and nonionic surfactants have relatively little foaming. Therefore, in addition to detergents, it is used for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, foods, and the like. In addition, amphoteric surfactants are used as bactericides, antistatic agents, and the like, and cationic surfactants have a strong bactericidal action, but require caution in practice because they cannot be used together with alkalis. In the present embodiment, an anionic surfactant having a high detergency and a high stability, or a nonionic surfactant having a small amount of foaming is used, and a zwitterionic surfactant is used by being mixed with either one. Is also possible.

In the above configuration, the filter medium 1 was first immersed in an anionic or nonionic surfactant 2 and pulled out and dried, whereby the surfactant 2 adhered to the surface of the filter medium 1 as shown in FIG. The surface treatment filter 1A is formed. When the surface-treated filter medium 1A is mounted on an air conditioner or the like and is operated, dust is generated on the surface of the surface-treated filter medium 1A.
Attached on top and collected. Next, the surface-treated filter medium 1A is removed from the air conditioner, and the dust adhered to the surface-treated filter medium 1A is easily washed away together with the surfactant 2 by washing with water or detergent, and all the dust is removed from the surface of the filter medium 1. It will be. For example, even when carbon black which is difficult to remove adheres to the surface-treated filter medium 1A, since the surfactant 2 covers the filter medium surface, it is prevented from directly adhering to the filter medium 1 and is easily removed. Furthermore, the filter medium 1 after washing is immersed in the surfactant 2, drawn out, and dried, whereby the surface-treated filter medium 1A can be regenerated, and can be used repeatedly as an air filter of an air conditioner. An improved air filter can be realized.

(Example 2) As shown in FIGS. 1 and 3, a filter medium 3 for collecting dust is made of a dry nonwoven fabric 5 having rigidity and dust holding performance, and an ultrafine fiber having a fiber diameter of 10 μm or less exhibiting filter performance. The fiber nonwoven fabric 4 is joined to form a two-layer structure. 1% by weight to 20%
The fiber 2 is immersed in the surfactant 2% by weight and then dried to form a surface-treated filter medium 3A in which the surface of the fiber is covered with the surfactant 2. The surface-treated filter medium 3A having the filter medium 3 having a two-layer structure is set in an air conditioner and efficiently collects dust. The collected dust is washed by the surface treatment filter medium 3A,
The structure is such that it can be easily washed off together with the surfactant 2.

In the above configuration, the surface-treated filter medium 3A is
By immersing and drying the surfactant 2, the surfactant 2 penetrates deep into the two-layered filter medium 3 and adheres to the fiber surface. When the surface-treated filter medium 3A is set in an air conditioner to collect dust, the dry nonwoven fabric 5 having rigidity and dust holding performance has a function of collecting and holding a large amount of dust having a large particle size. The microfiber nonwoven fabric 4 has a function of efficiently collecting dust having a small particle size that cannot be collected by the dry nonwoven fabric 5.

The dry nonwoven fabric 5 having rigidity and dust retention performance can be manufactured by various methods such as mechanical entanglement using a needle or a water stream, thermal bonding, etc. Among them, those using a chemical binder have a high rigidity and high elongation. It is convenient to adjust, and the fiber material used is a single composition of various fibers such as rayon, vinylon, nylon, polyester, acrylic, etc., as well as adhesion and rigidity with the binder, pressure loss, dust retention performance The above fibers may be mixed in consideration of the basic physical properties such as the above.

Further, the fiber diameter 1 for exhibiting the filter performance
As the ultrafine nonwoven fabric 4 having a thickness of 0 μm or less, a melt blown nonwoven fabric of an olefin resin is suitable from the viewpoints of fiber thinning and chemical resistance.

Ultrasonic bonding, bonding with an adhesive or the like can be considered as a bonding method of the ultrafine fiber nonwoven fabric 4 and the dry nonwoven fabric 5, but if possible, maintain the bulkiness of the filter medium as a whole and avoid pressure loss. A method of processing is desired.
Therefore, in the case of ultrasonic bonding, it is desirable that the pressure-bonded area is small (one pattern is large but the density is low), and in the case of an adhesive, the amount of application is small.

It is preferable to use an anionic or nonionic surfactant as the surfactant 2 for immersing the filter medium 3 having a two-layer structure. Among them, it is preferable to use an anionic surfactant having a strong detergency. desirable.

Example 3 As shown in FIGS. 1 and 4 to 6, the filter medium 6 is composed of a dry nonwoven fabric 8 made of a mixture of hydrophilic vinylon and a hydrophobic polyester and an ultrafine nonwoven fabric made of polypropylene having a fiber diameter of 10 μm or less. 7 are joined in a two-layer structure. The surface-treated filter medium 6A in which the surfactant 2 is immersed and dried in the filter medium 6 is attached to an air conditioner or the like as a dust collecting filter, and the collected dust is subjected to the surface-treated filter medium 6A.
Is removed by washing.

In the above configuration, cleaning was verified under the conditions shown in Table 1 based on the process shown in FIG.

[0026]

[Table 1]

The filter media immersion / drying process, dust collection process, and filter media washing / drying process are defined as one washing, and the surfactant 2 is immersed in the filter media 6 for regeneration, and the surfactant 2 is not immersed. (Table 2) shows the experimental results of up to 5 washes.

[0028]

[Table 2]

Based on the numerical values shown in Table 2, a characteristic result of the reflectance as shown in FIG. 5 and a characteristic result of the recovery rate as shown in FIG. 6 were obtained.

As a result, both the reflectance and the recovery
The surface-treated filter medium 6A in which the surfactant 2 was immersed and dried resulted in about twice or more the result in comparison with the filter medium 6 in which the surfactant 2 was not immersed and dried, indicating that the use of the surfactant 2 provided good results. In addition, this experiment proves that the surface-treated filter medium 6A can sufficiently withstand use even if the regeneration step after dust adhesion is repeated.

This verification method is based on a physical property test (reflectance of light) JIS-C-9606, and the reflectance after washing is a relative value when a standard white plate (barium sulfate) is set to 100. The recovery rate is obtained by numerically expressing the reflectance after washing based on the reflectance of the filter medium before use.

The ultrafine nonwoven fabric 7 made of polypropylene and having a fiber diameter of 10 μm or less constituting the filter medium 6 is prepared from polypropylene having a melt flow index of 600 by meltblown spinning and has a fiber diameter of 2.3 μm and a meltblown ultrafine fiber with a basis weight of 25 g / m ^2. It is desirable to use a fibrous nonwoven fabric 7.

As the dry nonwoven fabric 8, 6.6 dtex × 51 mm of vinylon fiber and 2.2 d of polyester fiber are used.
Good results were obtained in the case of 65 g / m ² in which cotton was mixed at a ratio of 50/50 with tex × 51 mm, and an organic phosphorus-based chemical was adhered as an acrylic-based flame retardant as a chemical binder.

The surface-treated filter medium 6A in which the filter medium 6 is immersed in an aqueous solution of 1% to 20% by weight of the surfactant 2 is resistant to oil stains due to the action of vinylon having high oil resistance, and the vinylon has a hydrophilic property. Therefore, it is possible to easily dissolve the surfactant 2 at the time of washing, and not only to enhance the washing effect,
The cleaning effect can be maintained against repeated use of the surface treatment filter 6A.

By using an anionic surfactant aerosol OT as an example of the surfactant 2, the wet permeability to the filter medium is high, and the dust adsorbed at the time of washing is easily removed from the filter medium 6. be able to.

Example 4 As shown in FIG. 7, a filter medium 9 for collecting dust is formed by joining a dry nonwoven fabric 11 and a microfiber nonwoven fabric 10 exhibiting filter performance in a two-layer structure. As a means, a moisture-curable urethane resin 12 is used. The dry non-woven fabric 11 is made of a mixture of hydrophilic fiber vinylon and hydrophobic fiber polyester.
It is made of polypropylene of μ or less.

In the above configuration, the moisture-curable urethane-based resin 12 does not remelt or deteriorate due to its thermosetting properties, and is used as a surfactant to be immersed in the filter medium 9 or a surfactant to be used at the time of cleaning to remove dust. Even if the property is acidic or alkaline, it does not react and there is no change in the shape of the joined resin, so that the adhesion and the durability of the filter medium are enhanced.

The moisture-curable urethane-based resin was 5 g /
m ² and dry nonwoven fabric 10 and ultrafine fiber nonwoven fabric 1
The filter medium 9 joined with No. 1 has a strong joining force and a high durability, and a good result is obtained.

[0039]

As is apparent from the above examples, according to the present invention, a filter medium composed of a nonwoven fabric for collecting dust in the air, an aerosol OT or a sulfonate anionic surfactant, or a nonionic fatty acid is used. A system having a surface-treated surfactant and a surface-treated filter medium obtained by immersing the surfactant in the filter medium and dried, and removing dust collected by the surface-treated filter medium by washing the surface-treated filter medium. Because the highly stable surfactant is attached to the surface of the filter medium in the form of a film, dust can be easily absorbed, and the dust adsorbed on the filter medium during cleaning is removed together with the surfactant. In addition, it is possible to provide an air filter which can improve the cleaning performance and can cope with a circulation type environmental system.

Further, a dry nonwoven fabric having rigidity and dust retention performance, and a fiber diameter of 10 μm exhibiting a filter performance.
The following ultrafine fiber nonwoven fabric is provided with a filter medium having a two-layer structure and a surfactant soaked in the filter medium, and the filter medium is washed with dust collected by the filter medium dipped and dried by the surfactant. By removing the dust, it is possible to prevent re-scattering of coarse dust, improve the dust collection rate by collecting fine dust, and use a surfactant to collect a relatively large amount of dust collected on the air filter. Can be easily washed away.

Further, a dry nonwoven fabric in a cotton blend of vinylon hydrophilic fiber and polyester polyester of hydrophobic fiber has a fiber diameter of 10%.
It has a filter material that is made by bonding a microfiber nonwoven fabric made of polypropylene of μ or less into a two-layer structure, so that the hydrophilic and oil-resistant vinylon easily separates dust during washing from the surface of the filter material and reduces oil resistance. It is possible to provide an air filter which can maintain durability and maintain a reflectance and a recovery rate even after repeated washing.

Further, since the moisture-curable urethane-based resin is used as a joining means for joining the nonwoven fabric into a two-layer structure, the joined portion has high chemical resistance, maintains durability, and can withstand repeated washing. Can provide an air filter that can withstand the above.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a process chart showing the re-use of an air filter in Examples 1 to 4 of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing a configuration of an air filter according to the first embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a schematic view showing a configuration of an air filter according to the second embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a schematic view showing a configuration of a filter medium in the air filter of Example 3;

FIG. 5 is a characteristic diagram showing a reflectance characteristic of the air filter.

FIG. 6 is a characteristic diagram showing characteristics of a recovery rate of the air filter.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram showing a configuration of a filter medium in an air filter according to Embodiment 4 of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Filter medium 1A Surface treatment filter medium 2 Surfactant 3 Filter medium 3A Surface treatment filter medium 4 Ultrafine fiber nonwoven fabric with a fiber diameter of 10μ or less 5 Dry nonwoven fabric 6 Filter medium 6A Surface treatment filter medium 7 Polypropylene ultrafine fiber nonwoven cloth with a fiber diameter of 10μ or less 8 Hydrophilic fiber vinylon Non-woven fabric of cotton blended with water and hydrophobic fiber polyester 9 Filter media 10 Ultra-fine fiber non-woven fabric with a fiber diameter of 10 μ or less 11 Dry non-woven fabric 12 Moisture-curable urethane resin

Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat II (Reference) D04H 3/16 D04H 3/16 (72) Inventor Hiroshi Hashimoto 6-2-61 Imafukunishi, Joto-ku, Osaka City, Osaka Matsushita Inside Seiko Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Akira Katsuya 6-2-61 Imafukunishi, Joto-ku, Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture Inside Matsushita Seiko Co., Ltd. (72) Takao Takeyama 6-2, Imafukunishi, Joto-ku, Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture No. 61 Matsushita Seiko Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Yasuhiro Niida 1-12-13 Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka, Osaka Prefecture Inside Kuraray Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Nobuo Hatta 1-12, Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka, Osaka No. 39 F-term in Kuraray Co., Ltd. (reference) 4D019 AA01 BA12 BA13 BB03 BB10 BC13 BC20 CB09 DA03 4L047 AA13 AA21 AB07 AB10 BA07 CA05 CB08 CB10 CC12 DA00 EA05

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A filter medium made of a nonwoven fabric that collects dust in the air, an aerosol OT or a sulfonate-based anionic surfactant, or a nonionic surfactant of a fatty acid, and the surfactant is added to the filter medium. An air filter having a surface-treated filter medium immersed and dried, wherein dust collected by the surface-treated filter medium is removed by washing the surface-treated filter medium. 2. The air filter according to claim 1, comprising a filter medium in which a dry nonwoven fabric having rigidity and dust retention performance and a microfiber nonwoven fabric having a fiber diameter of 10 μm or less exhibiting filter performance are joined in a two-layer structure. 3. A filter medium formed by joining a dry nonwoven fabric and a polypropylene ultrafine fiber nonwoven fabric having a fiber diameter of 10 μm or less in a two-layer structure in a cotton blend of hydrophilic fiber vinylon and hydrophobic fiber polyester. Or the air filter according to claim 2. 4. The air filter according to claim 2, wherein a moisture-curable urethane resin is used as a joining means for joining the nonwoven fabric into a two-layer structure.