Performance Assessment of Waste Aluminum Foil-Derived Hybrid Al ₂ O ₃ -rGO-WO ₃ -PANI Ceramic Membrane: A Multicomponent Heterojunction-Driven Photo-Electrocatalytic Process for the Treatment of Ciprofloxacin

The present study demonstrates the fabrication of an Al 2 O 3 membrane from waste aluminum (Al) foil and its subsequent integration with rGO, WO 3, and PANI to form a photoelectrocatalytic membrane (PECM) for ciprofloxacin treatment. The unique design, with strong interfacial and synergistic interactions between rGO, WO 3, and PANI, facilitated visible-light activity with enhanced electron–hole pair separation and electron mobility across the membrane. Herein, the key process parameters were first systematically optimized for the photocatalytic membrane (PCM) and electrocatalytic membrane (ECM) to test the efficiency of the prepared flow-through PECM. The kinetics of PECM for ciprofloxacin removal were found to be 1.5 and 1.9 times higher than those of PCM and ECM, respectively. Further scavenger and byproduct analyses revealed piperazine ring cleavage by h + /OH • as the primary removal pathway. The antifouling and reusability studies showed that the developed PECM maintained more than 80% fouling recovery ratio (FRR) even after five consecutive runs, demonstrating excellent self-cleaning ability and operational stability. These findings highlight the outstanding potential of Al-waste-derived ceramic membranes as a high-performance PECM process for advanced water treatment applications.