Palladium Nanoparticle-Loaded Mesostructural Natural Woods for Efficient Water Treatment

Natural wood with oriented microchannels and unique multi-level structures is an ideal candidate for making water treatment membranes. Here, palladium nanoparticles are loaded into different kinds of natural woods and the degradation property of the wood membranes for organic pollutants are investigated. The water flux of hardwoods is significantly higher than that of softwood due to the existence of large vessel elements. For the single pollutant, both hardwood and softwood show high degradation efficiency for methylene blue and methylene orange, while the degradation efficiency of the softwoods for 4-nitrophenol is significantly higher than that of the hardwoods due to their lower water flux. For the mixed pollutants, all the wood membranes have a good degradation property for different concentrations of methylene blue in polluted water, while the degradation efficiency of high concentration methylene orange and 4-nitrophenol is low. Our work will provide some guidance for the degradation of organic pollutants in actual polluted water.