Lamellar MOF/MXene membranes for high-performance antibiotic desalination

Antibiotic desalination is a crucial purification process that selectively removes salts from antibiotic-containing streams to enhance product stability and reduce downstream processing costs. While 2D metal–organic framework (MOF) membranes offer molecular sieving potential, their aqueous instability due to weak van der Waals stacking limits practical implementation. We address this chemical engineering challenge via electrostatically dominated assembly of positively charged ZnBDC-NH 2 MOF nanosheets (+40 mV) and negatively charged MXene (−25 mV). This strategy synergizes MOF’s size-exclusion pores with MXene’s fast water-transport nanochannels, while interfacial hydrogen bonding enhances structural robustness. The optimized membrane achieves exceptional antibiotic desalination performance: 97.59 % chloramphenicol rejection and an unprecedented water permeance of 269.3 L m −2  h −1  bar −1 , while maintaining stability over 120 h. At a comparable antibiotic rejection level, this water permeance is approximately 5–10 times higher than that of most previously reported membranes. Crucially, it demonstrates superior antibiotic/salt selectivity and maintains performance across varied feed concentrations. This work establishes a scalable electrostatic assembly platform for next-generation membranes in practical antibiotic wastewater treatment.