High-Performance photoinduced antimicrobial membrane toward efficient PM2.5-0.3 capture and Oil-Water separation

[Display omitted] •A unique composite membrane decorated by MOFs was developed.•Membrane shows excellent antibacterial property and filtration/separation ability.•Membrane emerges potential in biological protection and environmental conservation. Design and fabrication of highly efficient and multifunctional nanofiber membranes for biological protection and environmental conservation has attracted wide attention. Herein, a unique bimodal fiber diameter distributed polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) composite membrane decorated by zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF8) featuring favorable antibacterial activity was successfully prepared for efficient particulate matter (PM) capture and oil–water separation via a simple and feasible electrospinning process. Benefiting from the metal ions (Zn2+) and organic ligands released by ZIF8, particularly the generated reactive oxygen species (ROS) under photoexcitation, the composite membrane presented strong bactericidal activity against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Gram-negative Escherichia coli (E. coli). More impressively, owing to the effective drug loading capacity of ZIF8, the cefixime-encapsulated nanofiber membrane further exhibited remarkably enhanced antibacterial properties. Meanwhile, composite membrane achieved superior capture efficiency (99.90 ± 0.05 %) for PM0.3 and high purification ability (99.40 ± 0.10 %) for PM2.5 in real smoke environment under the combined effect of the strong surface charge on ZIF8 surface, high polarity of β-phase in PVDF, and ultrafine fibers, etc.; it also possessed excellent separation ability for water-in-oil emulsion and oil–water mixture due to the distinguished selective wettability, three dimensional porous structure and the enhanced demulsification performance of ZIF8. This multifunctional filtration/separation composite membrane emerges great potential in the fields of biological protection, air pollution control and oil–water separation.