In automotive components, filter serves as one of the most significant part of any vehicle. The efficiency and life of the filter plays an important role in determining the optimum wear protection of the engines. Currently, the cellulose media made on the wetlaid nonwoven process is used for this study and the experiments are carried out by depositing the nanofibers over this media using electrospinning process. The preliminary studies were carried out by varying the process parameters such as Voltage, Needle diameter, Electrode spacing distance and concentration.
In order to minimize the number of trials and time, design of experiments was conducted by varying the process parameters at three levels using Taguchi's L9 orthogonal array experimentation. The influence of process parameters on nanofiber diameter is also investigated by using ANOVA analysis. From this approach, it was found that the efficiency of 3 micron particles is close to 99.9% without compromising on the dust holding capacity of the filter. Finally, an empirical model based on the mean analysis was developed for the prediction of nanofiber diameter in filtration media with enhanced performance in both life and efficiency. This model shows the percentage deviation of 10 - 15 % in comparison to the experimental values of fiber diameter (nm).