Sequential Ultrafiltration-Catalysis Membrane for Excellent Removal of Multiple Pollutants in Water

Clean water production calls for highly efficient and less energy-intensive technologies. Herein, a novel concept of a sequential ultrafiltration-catalysis membrane is developed by loading Co₃O₄/C@SiO₂ yolk-shell nanoreactors into the fingerlike channels of a polymeric ultrafiltration membrane. Such a sequenced structure design successfully integrates selective separation with peroxymonosulfate-based catalysis to prepare a functionalized molecular sieve membrane, which exhibits excellent decontamination performance toward multipollutants by filtering the water matrices containing humic acid (HA) and bisphenol A (BPA). In this study, 100% rejection of HA and 95% catalytic degradation of BPA were achieved under a low pressure of 0.14 MPa and an ultrahigh flux of 229 L m^-2 h^-1, corresponding to a retention time of 3.1 s. Notably, the removal performance of multiple pollutants essentially depends on the ordered arrangement of ultrafiltration and catalysis. Moreover, the flow-through process demonstrated significant enhancement of BPA degradation kinetics, which is 21.9 times higher than that of a conventional batch reactor. This study provides a novel strategy for excellent removal of multiple pollutants in water.