In-situ coating TiO2 surface by plant-inspired tannic acid for fabrication of thin film nanocomposite nanofiltration membranes toward enhanced separation and antibacterial performance.

• Tannic acid (TA) and TiO 2 aqueous solution was used in interfacial polymerization. • TA coating on TiO 2 surface decreased the aggregations in top layer. • TA coating on TiO 2 surface improved inorganic/organic interfacial compatibility. • The obtained TFN membrane showed an excellent antibacterial property. • This study offered a new strategy to prepare high performance TFN NF membranes. A major issue hindering development of thin film nanocomposite (TFN) nanofiltration (NF) membrane is the interfacial defects induced by nanomaterial aggregation in top layer. Although various nanomaterials surface modification strategies have been developed to eliminate the interfacial defects, they usually involve extra modification steps and complex post-treatments. Inspired by the substrate-independent coating ability of tannic acid (TA) and the fact that the phenolic hydroxyl groups in TA can react with acyl chloride group in trimesoyl chloride, a TA coating solution containing TiO 2 nanoparticles was used as an aqueous phase of interfacial polymerization to prepare interfacial modified TFN NF membranes in this study. Surface modification of TiO 2 nanoparticles and interfacial polymerization can be carried out in a single step without any extra pre-modification step. It was found that the TA coating on TiO 2 nanoparticles surface could decrease TiO 2 aggregations and enhance interfacial compatibility between TiO 2 and polyester matrix. The TFN NF membrane prepared at a TiO 2 loading of 0.020 wt% exhibited a pure water flux of 28.8 L m-2 h−1 (284% higher than that of the controlled TFC membrane), and possessed enhanced NaCl and Na 2 SO 4 rejections of 57.9% and 94.6%, respectively, breaking through the trade-off between permeability and selectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]