Ultrafiltration TIO

1. A reactive electrochemical membrane comprising

a support layer having a median pore diameter size of 1 μm to 10 μm; and

an active layer disposed adjacent to and in contact with the support layer, and having a median pore diameter size of less than 1 μm,

wherein the median pore diameter of the support layer is at least 50% bigger than the median pore diameter of the active layer, and

wherein the support layer and the active layer independently comprise at least 80 wt % oxides of titanium, and wherein the oxides of titanium comprise at least 80 wt % of one or more of Magnéli-phase titanium oxides of the formula Ti n O 2n−1 , wherein n is an integer 4, 5, or 6.

2. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 , wherein the support layer and the active layer independently comprise at least 95 wt % oxides of titanium.

3. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 , wherein the oxides of titanium comprise at least 90 wt % of one or more of Magnéli-phase titanium oxides of the formula Ti n O 2n−1 .

4. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 3 , wherein n is 4.

5. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 , wherein each of the support layer and the active layer comprises of Ti 4 O 7 .

6. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 , wherein each of the support layer and the active layer consists of a mixture of Ti 4 O 7 and Ti 6 O 11 .

7. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 , wherein the active layer has a median pore diameter size of 10 nm to 1 μm.

8. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 , wherein the active layer has a thickness of 10 μm to 100 μm.

9. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 , wherein the support layer has a thickness of 50 μm to 5 mm.

10. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 having a roughness factor of at least 300 (determined based on inner surface area).

11. The reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 having a pressure-normalized permeate membrane flux for deionized water between 100 and 8000 L m −2 hr −1 bar −1 , as measured at temperature of 21° C., a cross flow rate of 50 L h −1 , and trans-membrane pressure of 68.9 kPa.

12. A method of preparing the reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 , comprising heating a TiO 2 membrane under a H 2 atmosphere to a temperature of 800 to 1500° C.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein H 2 atmosphere is maintained at a pressure of 0.5 atm to 1.5 atm.

14. The method of claim 12 , wherein the TiO 2 membrane is an asymmetric TiO 2 ultrafiltration membrane.

15. A method of purification and filtration of water comprising

(a) providing a reactor comprising a voltage source having a first terminal and a second terminal, a counter electrode being connected to the first terminal, and the reactive electrochemical membrane of claim 1 being connected to the second terminal,

(b) passing contaminated water through the reactive electrochemical membrane such that the contaminated water is in contact with the counter electrode while applying a voltage between the counter electrode and the reactive electrochemical membrane using the voltage source to remove contaminants; and

(c) removing purified and filtered water from the reactor.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the pressure drop across the reactive electrochemical membrane during passing of the contaminated water is less than 2 bar.

17. The method of claim 15 , further comprising electrochemically degrading the contaminants during passing of the contaminated water through the reactor comprising the reactive electrochemical membrane.

18. The method of claim 15 , further comprising submitting the reactive electrochemical membrane to anodic or cathodic electrochemical regeneration after removing the purified and filtered water from the reactor.

19. The method of claim 15 , wherein one or more of contaminants is bacterial or viral pathogen.

20. The method of claim 15 , wherein one or more of contaminants is oxyanions.