Issue

Vol. 19 (2027)

Enhanced Antibiotics Sieving by Exfoliated TiS2 Membranes via Surface Functionalization and Passivation

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-026-02315-4
Ruixin Yan
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Mingzi Sun
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Honglu Hu
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Ruijie Yang
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Zhen Zhang
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Weikang Zheng
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Liang Mei
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Ting Ying
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Yue Zhang
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Alicia Kyoungjin An
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Chuyang Y. Tang
Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Jingyun Fang
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, People’s Republic of China
Bolong Huang
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China
Zhiyuan Zeng
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Health, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Hong Kong 999077, People’s Republic of China

Corresponding Author: Zhiyuan Zeng

zhiyzeng@cityu.edu.hk

Nano-Micro Letters, Vol. 19 (2027), Article Number: 34

Abstract

Transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) nanolaminate membranes hold great promise for molecular sieving due to their two-dimensional capillary structures, which facilitate size-restricted diffusion. However, many transition metal sulfides exhibit intrinsic instability and are highly susceptible to oxidation, which severely limits their durability under reverse osmosis operating conditions. In this work, we introduce a stable 1T phase titanium disulfide (TiS2) constructing nanolaminate membranes from Group IVB, enabling the formation of tunable capillary channels and achieving a permeance up to 46.8 L m−2 h−1 bar−1. Experiments confirm that water-initiated hydrolysis, rather than direct oxidation by molecular O2, dominates the degradation of TiS2, while alkyl-chain hydrophobic barriers effectively suppress this water-triggered degradation. The enhanced surface hydrophobic properties simultaneously improve antioxidation stability and ensure sustained performance over 30 filtration cycles and 15 days of continuous operation. Functionalized membranes further reached 96.9% rejection for diverse antibiotics, such as sulfamethoxazole, ciprofloxacin, tetracycline, and rifampicin. This work opens new avenues for exploring emerging TMD materials in the efficient and reliable removal of trace antibiotics from water, contributing to safer water resources and promoting sustainable ecological practices.


Highlights:
1 A facile electrostatic self-assembly strategy simultaneously achieves interlayer expansion and antioxidation passivation of TiS2 membranes via quaternary ammonium functionalization.
2 The optimized DD-TiS2 membrane exhibits > 95% antibiotic rejection with high water permeance and retains stable performance over 30 filtration cycles and 15 days of continuous operation.
3 Density functional theory and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that hydrophobic alkyl-chain barriers suppress water-initiated TiS2 hydrolysis, while tunable capillary width governs antibiotic rejection via geometric size sieving.

Keywords

TiS2 membranes Antibiotic removal Antioxidation passivation Molecular sieving
Yan, Ruixin, Mingzi Sun, Honglu Hu, Ruijie Yang, Zhen Zhang, Weikang Zheng, Liang Mei, Ting Ying, Yue Zhang, Alicia Kyoungjin An, Chuyang Y. Tang, Jingyun Fang, Bolong Huang, and Zhiyuan Zeng. 2026. “Enhanced Antibiotics Sieving by Exfoliated TiS2 Membranes via Surface Functionalization and Passivation”. Nano-Micro Letters 19 (August):34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-026-02315-4.
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