Binder‐Free 3D Printed Polyurethane/Bi‐MOFs Composites for Photocatalytic Degradation of Rhodamine‐B

Abstract

The modularization of metal‐organic‐frameworks (MOFs) powders is a crucial to bringing out the excellent properties of MOFs to industrial applications in water treatment, gas adsorption/separation and catalytic fields. To improve their practical application and recyclability, we propose a hybrid composite of biocompatible MOFs decorated on self‐supported three‐dimensional (3D) printed polyurethane acrylate (PUA) for wastewater treatment. In this study, we select Bi‐based MOFs with good visible‐light response and chemical stability as photocatalysts, two MOFs, bismuth gallate (Bi‐GA) and bismuth ellagic acid (Bi‐EA), are loaded into the mesh‐like PUA template by in‐situ growth method. And then, these two composites, PUA/Bi‐GA and PUA/Bi‐EA are used for the photocatalytic treatment of Rhodamine‐B (RhB) dye. The results demonstrate that PUA/Bi‐EA could reach the highest removal rate of 98.08% under acidic conditions in 4 hours. The excellent performance should be attributed to unique structure that endow their high adsorption capacity for dyes, further, the adsorbed dye as a sensitizer enhances the utilization of sun‐light. This study provides a new composite for advanced photocatalytic water treatment and other environmental purification.