Fabrication of Fe Single‐Atom Catalytic Composite Membranes with Excellent Antifouling Performance for High‐Efficiency Water Purification

ABSTRACT The development of self‐cleaning catalytic membranes holds great promise for advancing wastewater treatment and addressing water pollution challenges. Herein, a novel Fe‐single‐atom‐anchored carbon‐doped graphitic carbon nitride (Fe‐C‐CN) catalyst was synthesized by calcining a self‐assembled precursor. The catalytic composite membrane (Fe‐C‐CN/AC/PVDF) was further fabricated via non‐solvent induced phase separation, where Fe‐C‐CN was dispersed in poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) matrix with activated carbon (AC) incorporated to boost pollutant adsorption. Synergistic physical adsorption and photo‐Fenton‐like catalysis endow the composite membrane with prominent water purification and antifouling performance. Through a single‐pass filtration under photo‐Fenton‐like reaction conditions, the composite membrane achieved a degradation efficiency of 93.4% and a total organic carbon (TOC) removal efficiency of 61.9% for 40 ppm tetracycline (TC) aqueous solution. The composite membrane maintained excellent performance across 10 consecutive cycles with negligible iron leaching, verifying its robust structural and operational stability. The TC degradation mechanism was elucidated by identifying the dominant reactive radicals and intermediate reaction products. This membrane exhibited universal removal performance for various organic pollutants, including antibiotics, dyes, and phenolic compounds, and achieved a bactericidal efficiency of 99.8%. This work proposes a feasible strategy for the fabrication of multifunctional membranes and provides new insights for the remediation of complex wastewater.