Ultrathin, Flexible, and Multifunctional Silk Fibroin-Ag Functional Engineered Membranes for Integrated Separation, Treatment, and Detection of Water Pollutants

Multifunctional membranes integrating pollutant separation, treatment, and detection are highly desirable but challenging to create. Here, we report a coordination-adsorption-reduction strategy to fabricate ultrathin, flexible, self-supporting silk fibroin-Ag (SAFE) membranes at the air-water interface. Mechanistic studies reveal that silver(Ι) center coordination guides silk fibroin aggregation, which templates uniform AgNP growth. The resulting membranes achieve exceptional electrical conductivity (up to 1.9 × 10⁷ S m^-1) and mechanical robustness. Functionally, they provide high-flux separation and superior pollutant adsorption, while the embedded AgNPs offer multifaceted treatment via antimicrobial, catalytic, and electrochemical activities and enable sensitive SERS detection of trace contaminants. This integrated "separation-treatment-detection" approach establishes SAFE membranes as a promising platform for intelligent and sustainable water purification.