A ternary composite hydrophilic electrospinning membrane containing Au for fast oil–water separation and antibiotics degradation

Water pollution from industrial wastewater and oil spills, which threat marine lives and mankind continually have turned into one of the most severe challenges in worldwide due to the fast development of global industrialization and human activities. Various water‐treatment methods have been developed to solve the problems. However, these processes are often complicated and costly, making them fail to address the complicate water environment. Herein, a visible light‐responsive Au‐BiOCl/TiO2/PAN composite membrane with hydrophilic surface was prepared by combing electrospinning with solvothermal method. The composite membranes can efficiently separate emulsions with the highest flux of 50.16 L m−2 h−1 and oil/water mixtures (the highest flux was 4777.07 L m−2 h−1 bar−1). Moreover, the membranes can rapidly degrade antibiotics with an excellent degradation rate (95.70% in 60 min) under the visible light. Additionally, they can simultaneously degrade organic dye and separate oil/water emulsions under a gravity condition. It is expected that composite membranes will be an attractive candidate for complex wastewater treatment. In this work, a ternary composite membrane Au‐BiOCl/TiO2/PAN was prepared by combining electrospinning with hydrothermal method. The membrane with hydrophilic antifouling surface can efficiently separate various oil‐water mixtures and oil‐in‐water emulsion, meanwhile effectively degrade antibiotics and dyes in water by visible‐light photocatalysis. The multifunctional membrane holds great potential for complex wastewater treatment.