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Air filter technology has been applied widely in various fields, e.g. industry, health, and environment. The performance of air filter is characterized by quality factor value which depends on the filtration pressure drop and efficiency. The pressure drop can be obtained by measuring the pressure different of both sides of the filter when the air is flown through it. The filtration efficiency can be measured by counting the number of particles before and after filtration. For this purpose, particles with known sizes are required to obtain the filtration efficiency curve as the function of particle size. Polystyrene latex (PSL) is monodisperse particle with perfect spherical shape. Their size uniformity is advantages for their application as the particle source for the air filter characterization. This paper discusses the air filter characterization using PSL particles with various sizes. The air filters in this study were polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofiber membranes, which were prepared by electrospinning technique. The thickness of the PAN membranes were varied by setting the electrospinning time. We also compared the filtration performance of the PAN membranes to the commercial filter. The filtration efficiency to particle diameter curve depicted the most penetrating particle size (MPPS) value of 294 nm.