Flow-through heterogeneous electro-Fenton based on Co-CNT/Ti3C2TX membrane for improved tetracycline removal in wide pH ranges

The heterogeneous electro-Fenton (HEF) membrane has shown great potential for the treatment of refractory organic pollutants, but there are growing demands to improve its degradation efficiency and suitability for addressing practical organic pollutant issues. Here, a novel Co-CNT/Ti3C2TX nanocomposite membrane was successfully prepared by vacuum filtration, followed by heat treatment. Different from the traditional batch reactor, a flow-through reactor with Co-CNT/Ti3C2TX membrane was designed as an electrode to make the full use of the combined synergistic effect of adsorption and electro-Fenton (EF) process for the degradation of organic pollutants. The results found that the Co-CNT/Ti3C2TX flow-through HEF system exhibited satisfactory degradation (99.0–83.2%) on tetracycline (TC) in a wide range of pH 2.0–7.0. In addition, the obtained Co-CNT/Ti3C2TX membrane possesses self-cleaning performance in long-term continuous conditions. Co-CNT/Ti3C2TX membrane can also be used to treat practical TC wastewater with complex components, tannery printing and dyeing wastewater, and wastewater with different water matrices, and their removal efficiency can reach more than 87.0%. Specially, the coupling effect could be beneficial to accelerate the degradation of pollutants in the EF process. The method provided in this work could be further expanded, making industrial usage of the HEF membrane a reality.