This paper introduces a novel wood-inspired metamaterial catalyst for efficient water purification. The catalyst, fabricated using 3D metal printing (316L stainless steel with cobalt coating), features overlapping microlattices with bimodal pores. This design decouples mechanical strength, mass transport, and catalytic efficiency, resulting in a robust and high-throughput system. Compared to traditional microlattices, the 70% overlap design shows a threefold increase in strength and surface area, and a fourfold increase in normalized reaction kinetics. The catalyst effectively degrades pollutants like sulfamethoxazole, demonstrating the potential for a system-level synergistic improvement in water purification.

Lei Zhang, Hanwen Liu, Bo Song, Jialun Gu, Lanxi Li, Wenhui Shi, Gan Li, Shiyu Zhong, Hui Liu, Xiaobo Wang, Junxiang Fan, Zhi Zhang, Pengfei Wang, Yonggang Yao, Yusheng Shi, Jian Lu