Real Wastewater Performance of Electrospun Metal Organic Framework Membranes for Simultaneous Adsorption and Photodegradation of Emerging Organic Pollutants: A Comprehensive Critical Review

ABSTRACT

Conventional wastewater treatment technologies fail to intercept emerging organic pollutants at environmentally relevant trace concentrations. This failure is mechanistic: adsorptive concentration and oxidative mineralization operate as structurally decoupled processes within all established treatment platforms. The present review addresses this gap directly. It critically and exclusively examines the real wastewater performance of dual‐function electrospun metal–organic framework (MOF) membranes as integrated adsorption photocatalysis systems for emerging organic pollutant removal. Unlike prior reviews confined to idealized synthetic matrices, this work interrogates authentic wastewater complexity across MIL, UiO, and ZIF series frameworks embedded in polymer nanofiber carriers. Real wastewater imposes quantifiable and compounding performance penalties. Natural organic matter suppresses adsorptive uptake by 30%–60%. Bicarbonate scavenges photogenerated hydroxyl radicals at 8.5 × 10 ⁶  M ⁻¹  s ⁻¹ . Phosphate coordinates irreversibly to Lewis acid metal nodes, producing near‐permanent active‐site deactivation. These matrix effects collectively erode the adsorption pre‐concentration effect, which constitutes the mechanistic foundation of dual‐function synergy. Microporous framework architectures resist this erosion more effectively than large‐pore analogues through size‐selective exclusion of competing organic matter. No standardized framework currently exists for cross‐study performance comparison. This review proposes one. Four metrics are introduced: the capacity reduction factor, the photodegradation deviation index, the synergy preservation factor, and the apparent quantum yield. Three barriers obstruct credible deployment readiness: the absence of operational data beyond 30 days, incomplete ecotoxicological characterization of treated effluents, and the absence of pilot‐scale field validation.