Biopolyphenol stabilized CoFe2O4-rGO/GO catalytic cleaning membrane for fast and high-efficiency contaminants removal

Utilizing membrane materials for the purification of wastewater represents an effective approach to address water scarcity. Nonetheless, the issues of membrane fouling and stability hinder their widespread application. Herein, an effective biopolyphenols (PP) modification strategy was proposed to construct strongly stable cobalt ferrite-loaded graphene oxide (CoFe2O4-rGO-PP/GO) membranes with catalytic cleaning function. Compared with the membranes without PP modification, the incorporation of polymerized tannic acid (pTA), green tea polyphenol (GTP), and black tea polyphenol (BTP) significantly improved membrane separation efficiencies of methylene blue (MB), with high removal reaching 99.11, 98.92, and 99.20 %, respectively. Notably, the CoFe2O4-rGO-pTA/GO membrane demonstrated high rejection and outstanding permeability of 167.2 L m−2 h−1 bar−1. Introducing pTA, GTP, and BTP could enhance MB degradation rate constants by 61.54, 38.46, and 19.23 % via peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation, respectively. Remarkably, CoFe2O4-rGO-pTA/GO membrane achieved near-complete MB degradation within 12 min. Moreover, CoFe2O4-rGO-PP/GO membranes maintained high MB rejection exceeding 97 % even after ten cycles, highlighting exceptional stability and catalytic cleaning performance. The separation mechanism of these membranes was dominantly governed by the nano-confined adsorption under pressure-driven flow-through process, which was greatly distinguished from a size-sieving mechanism of densely stacked 2D lamellar membranes replying on their in-plane pores or interlayer nano/subnano-channels. This PP modification strategy can be extended to design diversified 2D lamellar membranes with guest intercalation, to achieve high stability, superior separation and multi-function.