Air particulate pollution from ever-increasing industrialization poses an enormous threat to public health. Thus, the development of a green air filter with high efficiency and performance is of urgent necessity. In this study, we introduce a new effective air filtration membrane that can be used for outdoor protection. The air filter's composite nanofibre materials were prepared from polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-sodium lignosulfonate (LS) via a "green" electrospinning method and thermal crosslinking. The addition of LS helped increase the PM2.5 removal efficiency compared to that of a pure PVA nanofibre membrane. The pressure drops of the electrospun PVA-LS membranes exceeded those of the pristine PVA air filter. The remarkable air filtration performance was maintained even after 10 cycles of circulation filtration. In addition, the PVA-LS composite nanofibre membrane exhibited excellent mechanical properties and transparency due to the introduction of LS. This study provides new insight into the design and development of high-performance and high-visibility green filter media, which include personal protection and building screens. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.