Wood-inspired metamaterial catalyst for robust and high-throughput water purification

Continuous industrialization and other human activities have led to severe water quality deterioration by harmful pollutants. Achieving robust and high-throughput water purification is challenging due to the coupling between mechanical strength, mass transportation and catalytic efficiency. Here, a structure-function integrated system is developed by Douglas fir wood-inspired metamaterial catalysts featuring overlapping microlattices with bimodal pores to decouple the mechanical, transport and catalytic performances. The metamaterial catalyst is prepared by metal 3D printing (316 L stainless steel, mainly Fe) and electrochemically decorated with Co to further boost catalytic functionality. Combining the flexibility of 3D printing and theoretical simulation, the metamaterial catalyst demonstrates a wide range of mechanical-transport-catalysis capabilities while a 70% overlap rate has 3X more strength and surface area per unit volume, and 4X normalized reaction kinetics than those of traditional microlattices. This work demonstrates the rational and harmonious integration of structural and functional design in robust and high throughput water purification, and can inspire the development of various flow catalysts, flow batteries, and functional 3D-printed materials. © The Author(s) 2024.