Ultrahigh Piezocatalytic Performance of Perovskite Ferroelectric Powder via Oxygen Vacancy Engineering

Xuechen Liu; Mingwen Wang; Yuanyi Zhou; Tao Li; Hongxu Duan; Jinglei Li; Linghang Wang; Yang Li; Shuai Yang; Jie Wu; Chao Wang; Xinya Feng; Fei Li

doi:10.1002/smll.202303129

Ultrahigh Piezocatalytic Performance of Perovskite Ferroelectric Powder via Oxygen Vacancy Engineering

Small. 2023 Dec;19(49):e2303129. doi: 10.1002/smll.202303129. Epub 2023 Aug 24.

Authors

Xuechen Liu¹, Mingwen Wang¹, Yuanyi Zhou², Tao Li³, Hongxu Duan³, Jinglei Li¹, Linghang Wang¹, Yang Li¹, Shuai Yang¹, Jie Wu¹, Chao Wang¹, Xinya Feng¹, Fei Li¹

Affiliations

¹ Electronic Materials Research Laboratory, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education and State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, School of Electronic and Information Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China.
² The Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Heyuan, 517000, China.
³ Center for Spintronics and Quantum Systems, State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China.

PMID: 37616518
DOI: 10.1002/smll.202303129

Abstract

Piezocatalysis has increasingly gained prominence due to its enormous potential for addressing energy shortages and environmental pollution issues. Nonetheless, the low piezocatalytic activity of state-of-the-art materials seriously inhibits the practical applications of piezocatalysis. Here, it is proposed to greatly enhance the piezocatalytic activity for a perovskite ferroelectric, i.e., Sm-doped 0.68Pb(Mg_1/3 Nb_2/3 )-0.32PbTiO₃ (Sm-PMN-PT, a solid solution with ultrahigh piezoelectricity), by introducing oxygen vacancies (OVs). The results show that the presence of OVs promotes the production of reactive oxygen species while enhancing the adsorption and activation of organic pollutants to improve piezocatalytic performance. The OV-Sm-PMN-PT is found to possess a superior piezocatalytic degradation rate constant of 0.073 min^-1 under ultrasonic vibration, which is ≈4.9 times higher than that of pristine Sm-PMN-PT. Furthermore, the OV-Sm-PMN-PT can efficiently remove RhB under 400 rpm stirring, making it a promising candidate for water purification using low-frequency mechanical energy from nature. This research sheds light on the design of piezocatalytic materials via defect engineering.

Keywords: degradation; oxygen vacancy; perovskite ferroelectrics; piezocatalysis.

Abstract

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