Catalytic template assisted interfacial polymerization for high‐performance acid‐resistant membrane preparation

Abstract Highly permeable acid‐resistant nanofiltration (NF) membranes are of critical significance for the efficient treatment of acidic streams. Enhancing permeability while maintaining the high solute rejection of acid‐resistant NF membranes remains a great challenge due to the low reactivity of monomers. In this work, a novel catalytic template assisted interfacial polymerization (IP) strategy of 3‐aminobenzenesulfonamide (ABSA) and trimesoyl chloride (TMC) was provided to prepare a poly(amide‐sulfonamide) membrane. Aminopyridine doped graphene quantum dots rich in acylation catalytic sites and ZIF‐8 nanoparticles are co‐loaded on a substrate as template. Benefiting from the enhanced phase integrity and self‐inhibition effect of the template assisted IP process, the resulting ultra‐thin acid‐resistant membrane exhibits an excellent water permeance (20.4 Lm −2 h −1 bar −1 ) with a high Na 2 SO 4 rejection of 90.5%, which outperforms almost all the reported acid‐resistant NF membranes. Our work paves a versatile way for synthesis of special separation membranes.