Membrane fouling is an ongoing challenge in the membrane filtration process. Herein, a photocatalytic membrane comprising a reactive layer was fabricated by engineering partially reduced graphene oxide/Ag nanoparticles/MIL-88A (prGO/Ag/M88A, pGAM) photocatalysts on the PVDF substrate membranes. Benefiting from the high conductivity of prGO and the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect of Ag nanoparticles (Ag NPs), the photo-sensitivity of the prGO/Ag/M88A is significantly enhanced. Compared to the membrane in the dark condition, the pGAM membrane displayed an enhanced dye removal efficiency (∼99.7%) and significantly improved permeability (∼189 L·m-2·h-1 bar-1) towards dye contaminants based on the synergistic filtration/photo-Fenton processes. Significantly, the membrane retained high perm-selectivity after 10 cyclic runs (183 L·m-2·h-1 bar-1 of permeability and 98.1% of dye removal), and its nano-channel structure did not collapse under high pressure (0.1-0.4 MPa). The membrane also exhibits antifouling properties with a high water flux recovery of more than 90%. In addition, the pGAM membrane exhibited a high MB degradation efficiency (∼90%) when it is directly used as a photocatalyst in the photo-Fenton system. The mechanism of the self-cleaning is also proposed through quenching experiments. The results of this study demonstrate that this self-cleaning membrane has huge promise for membrane anti-fouling and wastewater remediation.
Keywords: MIL-88A; Photo-Fenton; Self-cleaning; Ultrafiltration; Water purification.
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