Fabrication of FeOCl/MoS2 catalytic membranes for pollutant degradation and alleviating membrane fouling with peroxymonosulfate activation

The combination of advanced oxidation (AOPs) and membrane separation technology provides a prospect for catalyst recovery and alleviation of membrane fouling . Herein, we prepared FeOCl/MoS 2 catalysts for activating peroxymonosulfate (PMS) by a simple partial thermal decomposition method. Then, the FeOCl/MoS 2 was immobilized onto a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane coated by polydopamine (PDA) through vacuum filtration. FeOCl/MoS 2 can remove 96.9% of rhodamine B (RhB) within 5 min. Notably, with a pH range from 3 to 9, FeOCl/MoS 2 exhibited high catalytic efficiency. Besides, the surface hydrophilicity of the PVDF membrane was significantly improved by the modification. The flux recovery rate (FRR) of the modified membrane reached 97.6%, which was 42.7% higher than that of the pristine membrane. With dead-end filtration, 72.2% of the pollutants can be removed. After 5 runs, the fabricated FeOCl/MoS 2 membrane displayed good stability and high efficiency. The analysis of the mechanism showed that adding MoS 2 to FeOCl can promote the reduction of Fe 3+ to Fe 2+ through the oxidation of Mo 4+ to Mo 6+ . The active species in this system were identified as SO 4 - •, •OH, O 2 - •, and 1 O 2 . SO 4 - • and 1 O 2 were dominant. This research provides a new strategy for the development and application of membrane separation technology.