Biofouling caused by microorganism is a serious problem that inhibits the application of membrane technology in wastewater treatment. To overcome this drawback, a novel silver nanowire-carbon nanotube/coal-based carbon (AgNW-CNT/CC) composite membrane was prepared with fascinating antimicrobial ability and electrochemically enhanced biofouling resistance. The addition of AgNWs could significantly enhance its antibacterial activity of the AgNW-CNT/CC composite membrane by releasing the silver ions or direct contact and accelerated bacterial detachment from membrane surface. The final flux of AgNW-CNT/CC composite membrane (70.5 % of its initial value) was 1.57 times higher than that for the CNT/CC membrane (45 % of its initial value) without an external voltage. Importantly, incorporating AgNWs was beneficial for electrochemical assistance, which exhibited a prominent synergistic antibiofouling performance. The flux of the cathodic AgNW-CNT/CC composite membrane was stable with acceptable flux loss (95.7 % of its initial value) under a low-voltage of 3.5 V, demonstrating the bacteria migration to the membrane surface can be inhibited by electrostatic repulsive and micro-bubbles generated via water electrolysis, thus promoting the inactivated bacteria to leave the membrane surface and avoid the formation of a biofilm, while the steady-state flux declined to 82.5 % of its initial value for electrochemically assisted CNT/CC membrane. Moreover, the regeneration of the fouled membrane can be achieved by applying an intermittent external voltage to promote the inactivated bacteria away from the membrane surface. These results suggested that the integration of electrochemistry with antimicrobial modification offers a new insight for biofouling mitigation during membrane separation.

微生物引起的生物污染是一个严重的问题，阻碍了膜技术在废水处理中的应用。为了克服该缺点，制备了具有令人着迷的抗微生物能力和电化学增强的抗生物污损性的新型银纳米线-碳纳米管/煤基碳（AgNW-CNT / CC）复合膜。AgNWs的添加可通过释放银离子或直接接触并加速细菌从膜表面的分离而显着增强其AgNW-CNT / CC复合膜的抗菌活性。AgNW-CNT / CC复合膜的最终通量（初始值的70.5％）是没有外部电压的CNT / CC膜的最终通量（初始值的45％）的1.57倍。重要的是，掺入AgNW有助于电化学辅助，表现出突出的协同抗生物污垢性能。阴极AgNW-CNT / CC复合膜的通量在3.5 V的低压下保持稳定，并具有可接受的通量损失（其初始值的95.7％），这表明静电排斥可抑制细菌向膜表面的迁移。通过水电解产生的微气泡，从而促使灭活的细菌离开膜表面并避免了生物膜的形成，而对于电化学辅助的CNT / CC膜，稳态通量下降到其初始值的82.5％。此外，可以通过施加间歇的外部电压以促进灭活的细菌远离膜表面来实现污垢膜的再生。