Uçak kabini içerisindeki uçucu organik bileşiklerin fotokatalitik oksidasyon yöntemi ile giderilmesi amacıyla nano fibroz yapılı filtrelerin üretimi, karakterizasyonu ve filtrelerin performans testleri

Indoor air quality (IAQ) recently is an essential subject for people because of the amount of personal time, which is spent in indoor environment such as houses, offices, shopping malls and vehicles increases day by day. Therefore, IAQ affects human health, their efficiency and comfort. Bacterias, viruses, dusts are some of the contaminants in the indoor environment. These pollutants usually include carbon oxides, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other particulates. Volatile organic compounds are major effective chemical contaminants that people breathe in indoor environment. For aircrafts, indoor air quality is called as Cabin Air Quality (CAQ) which is one of the most important parameters that affect passenger comfort in aircraft, especially on long duration and transatlantic flights. Because of the dynamic structure of aircrafts, cabin altitude, flight duration, temperature, pressure, cabin humidity and dehydration changes according to environmental conditions which affects the CAQ. Dusts, bacterias and viruses can be removed until a limited size from aircraft cabins by High Efficiency Particulate Filters (HEPAs) but gas filtration is a big challenge comparing to particulate filtration. VOCs are generally in gas phase because of their chemical properties. VOCs are familiar indoor contaminants, which are emitted from different sources such as in-flight meal and drink services, combustion by-products, consumer products, construction materials of people in the cabin etc. The accumulation of excessive amounts of VOCs causes health problems for passengers such as headache, fatigue, tiredness, nausea, and illness. For this reason, the filtration of these VOCs in cabin is needed. There are several traditional pollution removal method in aircraft cabins. However, these contaminants are converted from the gaseous phase to the solid phase by these removal methods. This requires manually frequent cleaning or periodical exchange of the filter. Photocatalytic oxidation (PCO) is a novel and promising method for the improvement of cabin air quality since the contaminants can be removed from the cabin and oxidize the contaminants to water vapor (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) which are not harmful for human health by using a combination of semiconductor catalysts and light energy. Titanium Dioxide (TiO2), which is the catalyst that is activated by UV light, is the most commonly used compound in PCO reactors. Design, characterization, production and the efficiency tests of the filters against VOCs in photocatalytic oxidation process is the main topic of this study. Electrospinning method used for production of the filters with different polymeric materials. Titania was deposited onto the nanofibers(NFs) mat as catalyst by electrospraying which is a similar method of electrospinning. For activation of these filters UV light is required and for providing that UV-Lamps and UV LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) were used as a novel technology. By varying the UV light intensity on the filters, efficiency analyzes were made. The reason of choosing UV LED instead of UV-Lamp is the advantages of LEDs. In conclusion, cabin air quality is poor on newer model aircrafts because of the incorporation of recirculation systems and lower outside airflow. Therefore, CAQ is an important issue for aircraft manufacturers and airline companies in these days. High efficiency particulate air type filters (HEPA-types) are already included in recent aircrafts in order to remove particulates and biological particles from the recirculated air in the cabin. However, VOCs are still can not be removed from the cabin air by current filters. Consequently, PCO reactors must be developed and mounted in aircrafts for removing VOCs and increasing the CAQ in aircrafts.In this study, the photocatalytic capable NF based filters was designed, fabricated, tested and optimized to maintain a highly efficient cabin air filtration system using the PCO process.