Fabrication of the TiO₂/Ti₃C₂ loaded ceramic membrane targeting for photocatalytic degradation of PPCPs: ciprofloxacin, tetracycline, and ibuprofen

Highlights

● TiO₂ nanoparticles are generated in situ on layered Ti₃C₂ MXene.

● TiO₂/Ti₃C₂ photocatalytic ceramic membrane enables one-step solid-liquid separation.

● The membrane enhances photocatalytic degradation of PPCPs like CIP, TCN, and IBP.

● Calcination increased membrane flux from 80 to 320 L/(m²·h).

● The ceramic membranes exhibit good stability and have broad market prospects.

Abstract

Photocatalytic membranes offer an effective strategy to overcome the difficulties of solid-liquid separation and secondary contamination of powdered photocatalysts. MXene is a 2D material of layered Ti₃C₂, which is considered to limit electron-hole separation and contribute to photocatalysis. In this work, the etched Ti₃C₂ MXene was loaded on the surface of ceramic membranes using polydopamine (PDA) as a binder, followed by one-step calcination to produce TiO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) in situ. The characterizations supported that the TiO₂/Ti₃C₂ ceramic membranes had high mechanical strength while retaining the layered structure of Ti₃C₂, which was conducive to the inhibition of electron and hole complexation, improving the photocatalytic performance. Degradation experiments revealed that the material showed enhanced degradation of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) such as ciprofloxacin (CIP), tetracycline (TCN) and ibuprofen (IBP). The LC-MS and toxicity prediction models indicated that the developmental toxicity of CIP degradation products decreased with prolonged photocatalytic reaction, exhibiting no acute toxicity to fish. The MT650 exhibited significantly enhanced water flux properties (320 L/(m²·h)). The TiO₂/Ti₃C₂ ceramic membranes explored in this work are expected to target the treatment of PPCPs with excellent engineering promise.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

MXene / TiO₂ / Photocatalytic degradation / Ceramic membrane / Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs)

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the grants from the Taishan Scholars Young Experts Program (China) (No. tsqn202103080), the Shandong Province Higher Educational Youth Innovation Science and Technology Program (China) (No. 2021KJ043), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51978311). The authors also thank Changxin Zhou from Shiyanjia Laboratory for the XPS and XRD test.

Conflict of Interests

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Electronic Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-024-1883-5 and is accessible for authorized users.

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