Antifouling Wood Matrix with Natural Water Transfer and Microreaction Channels for Water Treatment

Wood with abundant nutrition transport channels could be considered as a kind of natural water purifier due to quick and effective passages for separation. Nevertheless, microporosity as the main porous structure of initial wood is not enough to effectively separate small molecules, such as organic dye pollutants. Meanwhile, like most filters, the fouling resulting in blocking and poor water flux will also restrict their large scale. Here, we incorporate Fenton-like catalysis based on Mn3O4 loading for degradation of methylene blue with water transfer and separation channel of fir wood (the interfacial area was estimated up to 6 × 104 m2/m3) to solve the low separating efficiency and fouling problem. The results show that the wood matrix treated by hydrothermal carbonization loading with Mn3O4 nanoparticles (Mn3O4/TiO2/wood) exhibited remarkable catalytic efficiency on methylene blue (MB) moles degradation and the fouling problem could be significantly alleviated during Fenton-like catalysis. The turnover frequency of the wood matrix is 6.072 × 10–3 molMB·molMn3O4–1·min–1, which is much higher than the values reported in the literature. The flux maintained approached 2045 L·m–2·h–1 with a high rejection rate of more than 95%. Wood with natural interconnected micropores as the main fluid transfer and microreaction channels is a promising material for construction of parallel-series microreactors, to apply to some vital chemical process besides sewage purification and desalination.