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Rational design of dynamic fibre membrane for sustainable biofouling control

Nature Water volume 2, pages 161–171 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Current surface-controlled biofouling-based membrane technologies are retarded by short-run anti-biofouling performances. Dynamic fibre membrane, enriching the space and time of anti-biofouling agents acting on membrane, offers the potential to control biofouling in a continuous manner. We report the rational design and construction of a highly sustainable anti-biofouling dynamic fibre membrane, based on three interlocked criteria: (1) a three-dimensional space in the inner layer of fibre, halloysite nanotube (HNT), as ample active sites that load and release the biofilm inhibitor D-tyrosine; (2) a smart dynamic openness in the outer layer of fibre, polyvinylidene fluoride/polyacrylic acid semi-interpenetrating network polymer, as a continuous regulator that reloads D-tyrosine into HNT and re-releases it out of fibre; (3) electrospinning into dynamic fibre membrane. The dynamic fibre membrane-based ultrafiltration membrane exhibits exceedingly stable and sustainable anti-biofouling performance up to 185 days with only a 9.1% drop in reversible fouling recovery rate in a practical membrane bioreactor, far superior to the more than 40.4% decline of reversible fouling recovery rate within 75 days for the state-of-the-art anti-biofouling membranes. This systematic space–time-involved multidimensional membrane-construction concept opens a path of long-term sustainable running for membrane-based water treatment techniques.

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Fig. 1: Fabrication and characterization of the dynamic fibre membrane.
Fig. 2: Dynamic loading and releasing performances and mechanisms of the dynamic fibre membrane.
Fig. 3: Robust and sustainable anti-biofouling efficacy of the dynamic fibre membrane.
Fig. 4: The anti-biofouling efficacy of the dynamic fibre membrane in practical MBR system.
Fig. 5: Schematic diagram of anti-biofouling implications of the dynamic fibre membrane.

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Data availability

Data supporting the findings of this study are available within this article and its Supplementary Information. The raw data for the figures have been uploaded to Figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24944706).

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge financial supports from the Key Program of Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin City (18JCZDJC39700 (X.G.)), the Science and Technology Project of Binhai in Tianjin (BHXQKJXM-PT-ZJSHJ2017004 (X.G.)), the National Key Research and Development Program (2019YFC1804105 (X.G.)), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22376108 (X.G.)) and 111 Program, Ministry of Education of China (T2017002 (X.G.)). We thank Y.C. at Nankai University for her great help in CLSM characterization.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Shougang Fan, Qixing Zhou.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of Pollution Processes and Environmental Criteria, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Technology for Complex Trans-Media Pollution, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Environmental Remediation and Pollution Control, Tianjin Engineering Center of Environmental Diagnosis and Contamination Remediation, College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, China

    Shougang Fan, Qixing Zhou, Caini Liu, Chenghao Li, Penghui Ye, Yiyi Tao & Xiaoyan Guo

  2. College of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, TEDA, Tianjin, China

    Huaiqi Shao

  3. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Thin Film and Microfabrication Technology (Ministry of Education), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Mingce Long

  4. Department of Chemistry, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Qingbo Zhang

  5. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, George R. Brown School of Engineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Qilin Li

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  1. Shougang Fan
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Contributions

X.G. designed and led the project and improved the manuscript. S.F. prepared the dynamic fibre membrane, did the characterization, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript draft under guidance of X.G. Q. Zhou provided the experimental site for evaluating the practical anti-biofouling efficacy of the dynamic UF membrane. C. Liu helped to complete the data collection and figures preparation. C. Li, P.Y. and Y.T. jointly completed the evaluation of practical anti-biofouling efficacy of the dynamic fibre membrane. H.S., M.L., Q. Zhou, Q. Zhang. and Q.L. provided theoretical support. All authors contributed to the improvement of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xiaoyan Guo.

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Peer review information

Nature Water thanks Alicia Kyoungjin An, Jung-Hyun Lee, and the other, anonymous, reviewer for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods, Figs. 1–14, Discussion and Tables 1–14.

Supplementary Data 1

Source data for Supplementary Figs. 2, 3, 6, 7, 9 and 11.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Source data for Fig. 1d,g,i–j.

Source Data Fig. 2

Source data for Fig. 2a,b,c,e,f.

Source Data Fig. 3

Source data for Fig. 3a,b.

Source Data Fig. 4

Source data for Fig. 4b–d.

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Fan, S., Zhou, Q., Liu, C. et al. Rational design of dynamic fibre membrane for sustainable biofouling control. Nat Water 2, 161–171 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00196-8

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