Study of nanofiber membrane with biomimetic vascular structure and moisture permeability mechanism for high humidity...

To address the growing demand for improved comfort performance of occupational health protective materials in high-humidity, high-dust mine environments, this study draws inspiration from the structural characteristics of human vascular tissues and employs electrospinning to construct a bioinspired nanofiber filter with a gradient hierarchical architecture. Terahertz spectral imaging was employed to conduct moisture penetration and diffusion experiments on the filter membrane, in order to evaluate its unidirectional moisture transport and rapid evaporation performance. In addition, the pore architecture of the nanofiber filter membrane was characterized using high-resolution X-ray microtomography (XMT) and analyzed with Avizo software. On this basis, the Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) was introduced for the first time to simulate the dynamic transport of water vapor through nanofiber filter membrane under varying levels of human physical exertion. The results indicate that regardless of the flow direction, the average velocity increases with the intensification of labor intensity. In the case of forward flow, the flow velocity rapidly increases near the membrane inlet, then stabilizes in the middle section (X ≈ 30-80), and slightly decreases near the outlet region (X > 80). In reverse flow, the overall velocity is lower and increases gradually along the flow path, reaching a steady state only near the membrane outlet. Moreover, various fluids with different viscosities showed no penetration during reverse permeation, demonstrating excellent liquid barrier performance. This study aims to broaden the application of air purification materials in high-risk occupational environments, providing critical support for occupational disease prevention.