Photocatalytic materials, such as WO3, TiO2, and ZnO nanoparticles, are commonly linked onto porous polymer membranes for wastewater treatment, fouling mitigation and permeation enhancement. Buckypapers (BPs) are entanglements of carbon nanotubes, which have been recently proposed as innovative filtration systems thanks to their mechanical, electronic, and thermal properties. In this work, flexible membranes of single wall carbon nanotubes are prepared and characterized as efficient substrates to deposit by chemical vapor deposition thin layers of WO3 and obtain, in such a way, WO3/BP composite membranes for application in advanced oxidation processes. The photocatalytic efficiency of WO3/BP composite membranes is tested against model pollutants in a small continuous flow reactor and compared with the performance of an equivalent homogeneous WO3-based reactor.
Keywords: buckypapers; chemical vapor deposition; membranes; photocatalysis; single wall carbon nanotubes; tungsten trioxide.