Bio-inspired high-strength supramolecular fiber membrane by ice-dissolving-regeneration for achieving self-healing, self-cleaning and water purification

Recently, the development of renewable cellulose materials has attracted significant attention due to their remarkable properties of good biocompatibility, cost-affordable and readily available. Additionally, the regeneration and reapplication of celluloses can efficiently utilize the bio-resource to achieve the recycling of biomaterials. However, huge challenges existed for the uncontrollable regeneration process and poor mechanical property of regenerated cellulose, which greatly limited its practical application. In this study, a brand-new controllable regeneration method was developed by using collaborative bio-inspired in-situ self-assembly and "ice-dissolution-regeneration" strategy, and obtained regenerated cellulose membrane possessed excellent mechanical property and regulable three-dimensional (3D) interconnected porous structure. According to the best of our knowledge, such an ice-dissolving-regeneration strategy has not been exploited for preparing membrane with 3D porous structure. In the ice dissolution process, the supramolecular fibers membrane was regenerated by conducting the in-situ self-assembly process, and moreover, the membrane exhibited great self-healing, excellent selective permeation, outstanding anti-oil fouling, brilliant self-cleaning and superior tenacity performance. Under the condition of gravity, obtained membrane exhibited outstanding performance for achieving water purification. Therefore, the facile, universal and scalable regenerated strategy was developed in this study, which provided a novel way for efficiently constructing new-type supramolecular regenerated cellulose membrane.