A Cu/Polypyrrole-Coated Stainless Steel Mesh Membrane Cathode for Highly Efficient Electrocoagulation-Coupling Anti-Fouling Membrane Filtration

Membrane filtration fouling has become a significant issue that restricts its wide application. The electrocoagulation (EC) technique combines a variety of synergistic pollutant removal technologies (including flocculation, redox, and air flotation), which can be an ideal pretreatment process for membrane filtration. In this work, a novel Cu2+-doped and polypyrrole-coated stainless steel mesh membrane (Cu/PPy–SSM) was prepared by direct current electrodeposition, and it was introduced in an electrocoagulation-membrane reactor (ECMR) to construct an EC–membrane filtration coupling system. The Cu/PPy–SSM was applied as the cathode, while an aluminum plate was used as the anode in the ECMR. The ECMR enabled an excellent humic acid (HA) removal performance and could effectively mitigate the fouling of the Cu/PPy–SSM. Its performance can be attributed to the following: (1) the Cu/PPy–SSM can repel the negatively charged pollutants under the applied electric field; (2) the cathodic hydrogen gas produced on the Cu/PPy–SSM restrains the compacting of the cake layer and delays degradation of membrane flux; and (3) the resultant porous loose structure can perform as a dynamic membrane, which can effectively promote the separation performance of the Cu/PPy–SSM. The resultant ECMR enabled an improved HA removal rate of 92.77%, and the membrane-specific flux could be stabilized at more than 86%. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used to optimize the operation parameters of the ECMR, and the predicted HA removal rate reached 93.01%. Both the experimental results and modelled predictions show that using the Cu/PPy–SSM as a cathode can lead to excellent performance of the ECMR.