The purification of stabilized oil/water emulsions is essential to meet the ever increasing demand for monitoring water in the environment, which has been addressed with superwetting carbon-based separation membranes. These include superhydrophilic carbon-based membranes whose progress in recent years and perspectives are reviewed in this paper. The membrane construction strategy is organized into four parts, vacuum-assisted self-assembly, sol–gel process, electrospinning, and vacuum-assisted filtration. In each section, the design strategies and their responding disadvantages have been comprehensively discussed. The challenges and prospects concerning the superhydrophilic carbon-based separation membranes for oily wastewater purification are also summarized to arouse researchers to carry out more studies.

treatment technology an extremely tough task. [1] Currently, membrane separation technology has become the main channel to remediate the water environment attribu ting to its advantages, such as environ mental sustainability and energy saving. [2] Particularly, graphene oxide (GO) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs), have attracted comprehensive attention on constructing multifunctional separation membranes in the scientific field. [3] For one thing, they possess high surface areas that are ben eficial to achieve effective adsorption with watersoluble pollutants (dye molecules, bacteria, et al.). [4] For another, they can be taken as secondary reaction platforms for designing functional membranes through chemical crosslinking, interface assembly, and nanoparticle modification, which will enhance their capture ability for target compounds. [5] To date, the research on carbonbased membranes with versatility has brought inspiring achievements. For example, Liu and coworkers have designed a SiO 2 /GO composite mem brane through the modification of SiO 2 nanoparticle and eth ylenediamine. [6] It can purify the oilinwater (O/W) emulsion with the flux of 470 L m −2 h −1 and high retention capacity for dye molecules. Chen et al. have constructed a series of super hydrophilic CNTsbased composite membranes via hydrophilic Membrane separation is recognized as one of the most effective strategies to treat the complicated wastewater system for economic development. However, serious membrane fouling has restricted its further application. Inspired by sphagnum, a 0D/2D heterojunction composite membrane is engineered by depositing graphitic carbon nitride nano/microspheres (CNMS) with plentiful wrinkles onto the polyacrylic acid functionalized carbon nanotubes (CNTs-PAA) membrane through hydrogen bond force. Through coupling unique structure and chemistry properties, the CNTs-PAA/CNMS heterojunction membrane presents superhydrophilicity and underwater superoleophobicity. Furthermore, thanks to the J-type aggregates during the solvothermal process, it is provided with a smaller bandgap (1.77 eV) than the traditional graphitic carbon nitride (g-C 3 N 4) sheets-based membranes (2.4-2.8 eV). This feature endows the CNTs-PAA/CNMS membrane with superior visible-lightdriven self-cleaning ability, which can maintain its excellent emulsion separation (with a maximum flux of 5557 ± 331 L m −2 h −1 bar −1 and an efficiency of 98.5 ± 0.6%), photocatalytic degradation (with an efficiency of 99.7 ± 0.2%), and antibacterial (with an efficiency of ≈100%) ability even after cyclic experimental processes. The excellent self-cleaning performance of this all-in-one membrane represents its potential value for water purification.

A multiple stimuli‐responsive actuator with an ability of rapid and sensitive responding is highly desirable for the development of biomimetic actuation applications. Herein, a bilayer actuator with fast and sensitive responses to acetone vapor and light stimuli is reported based on polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane with a hierarchical porosity and macroscopic carbon nanotubes (CNTs) assembled film. The CNTs film with uniform and tunable thickness is prepared by a macroscopic interfacial assembly strategy and transferred integrally onto the PVDF membrane. Under the infrared light, this CNTs/PVDF bilayer actuator can bend rapidly within 1 s and generate large stress. Moreover, for the acetone vapor stimuli, the actuator bends within 0.19 s and also reverses in 1.24 s to the initial state, showing sensitive and fast responses to acetone stimuli, as well as outstanding stability and repeatability.

In article number 2007122, Min Chao, Jincui Gu, Xun Wang, Tao Chen, and co‐workers present an advanced all‐in‐one separation membrane, which can realize continuous water purification with stable separation performance, catalytic degradation ability, antibacterial capacity and excellent self‐cleaning ability, suggesting its potential value for purifying realistic complex wastewater.