High‐performance quaternized hollow fiber membrane with sponge pore structure for fast adsorbing dichloroacetic acid from water by flow‐through adsorption

Dichloroacetic acid (DCAA), one of the disinfection by‐products in water, has showed critical harm to human health since it can cause cancer, teratogen and mutagen. Herein, a quaternized hollow fiber membrane was fabricated by ring‐open reaction via a facile one‐step immersion method, which could fast adsorb DCAA by flow‐through adsorption. The obtained membrane with a sponge pore structure, which was quaternized at 60°C in an alkaline solution, exhibited excellent adsorption performance with removal percentage of 100%, life span up to 100 L and treating capacity of 24.8 mg m−2. Meanwhile, the optimal membrane exhibited the exceptional performance in a neutral test solution compared with acid or alkaline test solution. It was concluded that electrostatic attraction between positively charged quaternary ammonium groups and negatively charged DCAA was responsible for the adsorption mechanism. Additionally, fitting results indicated that the adsorption of DCAA onto the membrane was mainly dominated by homogeneous monolayer adsorption. This work developed a facile approach to prepare a novel quaternized membrane with outstanding adsorption performance, which demonstrated huge potentials in the molecular separation and water purification fields. Flow‐through adsorption process of the membrane.