Highly flexible and enhanced catalytic oxidation of Fe-doped Co3O4/SiOC core-shell heterostructured fibrous membranes for flow-through removal of organic contaminants

[Display omitted] •Flexible and robust core–shell heterostructured ceramic fiber membrane is created.•The FCSC membrane could withstand over 10,000 bending cycles without any cracks.•Fe doping enhances formation of oxygen vacancies and facilitates electron transfer.•The FCSC membrane shows good gravity- and pump-driven dynamic catalytic efficiency.•The FCSC fiber membrane exhibits superior reusability in multiple catalytic modes. Processing ceramic fibers into materials with notable catalytic oxidation activity, remarkable recoverability, and robust mechanical performance would be highly advantageous for water purification. Nevertheless, several intrinsic limitations still remain, including insufficient mechanical properties and inability to achieve dynamic filtering requirements. Herein, Fe-doped Co3O4 nanosheets were uniformly loaded onto the mechanically robust SiO2/C (SiOC) fibers via a facile hydrothermal approach, forming a core–shell heterostructured fibrous membrane. The partial etching of the SiOC fiber skeleton surface, in conjunction with the nucleation and growth of Fe-doped Co3O4 nanosheets, enables the formation of a robust junction between the core and shell layers. The resulting Fe-doped Co3O4/SiOC (FCSC) fibrous membranes exhibited enhanced tensile mechanics and extraordinary bendability, with the capacity to withstand over 10,000 reciprocating bending cycles without the formation of macroscopic cracks. Profiting from the integrated performance encompassing robust mechanical properties and outstanding peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activation capability, the synthesized FCSC membranes displayed superior dynamic catalytic filtration performance either driven by gravity or peristaltic pump. More importantly, the gravity-driven and pump-driven catalytic removal efficiency of the resulting membranes could be essentially maintained at approximately 80 % over 5 dynamic filtration cycles, revealing the superior dynamic filtration stability. This effective preparation strategy and excellent catalytic oxidation performance show a certain practical application potential, and may serve as a reference for the development of ceramic-based fiber membranes for wastewater treatment.