Quantitative Immobilization of Phthalocyanine onto Bacterial Cellulose for Construction of a High-Performance Catalytic Membrane Reactor

We report the fabrication of a tetra-amino cobalt (II) phthalocyanine (CoPc)-immobilized bacterial cellulose (BC) functional nanocomposite, CoPc@BC, by quantitative immobilization of CoPc onto a BC membrane. Lab-cultured BC was oxidized by NaIO(4) to generate aldehyde groups on BC for the subsequent CoPc immobilization, the processing conditions were optimized by monitoring both the generated aldehyde content and the resulting CoPc loading. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was employed to characterize the change of the element bonding environment during the functionalization processes. The CoPc@BC functional nanocomposite was utilized for the treatment of reactive red X-3B dye wastewater. The CoPc molecules in the CoPc@BC nanocomposite can function as an “antenna” to adsorb the target anionic dye molecules, the adsorption takes place both on the surface and in the interior of CoPc@BC. A catalytic membrane reactor (CMR) was assembled with the CoPc@BC nanocomposite, the performance of CMR was evaluated based on the catalytic oxidation behavior of reactive red X-3B, with H(2)O(2) as an oxidant. Highly-reactive hydroxyl radical (OH) was involved in the catalytic oxidation process, as detected by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). Under optimal operating conditions of a flow rate of 6 mL/min, a reaction temperature of 50 °C, and an H(2)O(2) concentration of 10 mmol/L, the decoloration rate of CMR was as high as 50 μmol⋅min(−1)⋅g(−1).