Nanocrystalline structured SnO2-Sb reactive electrochemical membrane for efficient electrochemical degradation of antibiotics in wastewater

A facile chemical vapor deposition strategy was developed to fabricate SnO 2 -Sb REM • The nanocrystalline structure of SnO 2 -Sb promoted the generation of ·OH effectively • The novel SnO 2 -Sb REM showed strong mineralization ability and low energy consumption • Extensive applicability and stability in actual wastewater treatment were achieved Developing a SnO 2 -Sb reactive electrochemical membrane (REM) with high efficiency and stability for water purification is of great significance for its practical industrial implementation. In this study, a stable and efficient SnO 2 -Sb REM with SnO 2 nanocrystalline catalytic layer was fabricated on TiO 2 -NTs substrates via a facile low-temperature chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method, without the need for specialized fabrication equipment. Structural characterizations demonstrated that the prepared SnO 2 -Sb layer exhibits high-quality crystalline interfaces, with cube-shaped nanocrystals of approximately 10 nm in size. Furthermore, the catalytic performance of the REM was assessed by florfenicol (FLO), a broad-spectrum antibiotic, as the target pollutant. Compared with the REM fabricated via the traditional sol-gel method (denoted as TiO 2 -NTs/SnO 2 -Sb REM), the TiO 2 -NTs/SnO 2 -Sb-NC REM significantly enhanced hydroxyl radical (·OH) generation, leading to 14.7% improvement in FLO removal and 39% reduction in electric energy (EE/O). The FLO degradation performance was also affected by flow rate, current density, initial FLO concentration and pH. Moreover, its excellent applicability and long-term stability were verified by high pollutant removal efficiency in actual pharmaceutical and high-salinity wastewater. These results highlight the great potential of the TiO 2 -NTs/SnO 2 -Sb-NC REM for practical water treatment applications. Download: Download high-res image (214KB) Download: Download full-size image