Rational design of graphite carbon nitride-decorated zinc oxide nanoarrays on three-dimensional nickel foam for the efficient production of reactive oxygen species through stirring-promoted piezo-photocatalysis

Zeqian Ren; Jinwei Xie; Xiu Li; Lixia Guo; Qiwei Zhang; Jizhou Wu; Yuqing Li; Wenliang Liu; Peng Li; Yongming Fu; Kunyu Zhao; Jie Ma

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2022.11.069

Rational design of graphite carbon nitride-decorated zinc oxide nanoarrays on three-dimensional nickel foam for the efficient production of reactive oxygen species through stirring-promoted piezo-photocatalysis

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2023 Feb 15;632(Pt B):271-284. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.11.069. Epub 2022 Nov 19.

Authors

Zeqian Ren¹, Jinwei Xie¹, Xiu Li¹, Lixia Guo¹, Qiwei Zhang¹, Jizhou Wu², Yuqing Li², Wenliang Liu², Peng Li¹, Yongming Fu³, Kunyu Zhao⁴, Jie Ma⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Physics and Electronic Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China.
² School of Physics and Electronic Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China.
³ School of Physics and Electronic Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China; Key Laboratory of Inorganic Functional Materials and Devices, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201899, China. Electronic address: fuyongming@sxu.edu.cn.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Inorganic Functional Materials and Devices, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201899, China. Electronic address: zhaokunyu@mail.sic.ac.cn.
⁵ School of Physics and Electronic Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Quantum Optics and Quantum Optics Devices, Institute of Laser Spectroscopy, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China. Electronic address: mj@sxu.edu.cn.

PMID: 36435070
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2022.11.069

Abstract

Stirring-promoted piezo-photocatalysis based on a three-dimensional foam architecture has great potential applications in wastewater treatment and water splitting. However, the detailed mechanism of stirring-promoted piezo-photocatalysis has not been quantitatively studied, and the utilization of visible light needs to be further improved. In this work, the high solar-driven piezo-photocatalytic ability of graphite carbon nitride (g-C₃N₄)-decorated zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoarrays on nickel (Ni) foam is experimentally achieved and first simulated by the finite element method (FEM). The water flow velocity, depending on the stirring rate, is significantly increased by turbulence-induced fluid eddies while flowing through 3D macropores and nanoarrays, resulting in higher piezoelectricity. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are experimentally examined by the electron spin resonance (ESR) technique and theoretically calculated by density functional theory (DFT) to confirm the configurations of the heterojunction under photocatalysis and piezo-photocatalysis. In particular, the large enhancement of ¹O₂ generation suggests the potential of piezo-photocatalysis in biological applications. The mechanism of piezo-photocatalysis is proposed in which the S-scheme heterojunction is realized by piezoelectricity to improve photocatalysis by retaining high redox ability and inhibiting recombination. This work provides a possible approach to harvesting energy sources for piezoelectricity and expands the scope of solar-driven piezo-photocatalysis.

Keywords: Nanoarray; Photocatalysis; Piezoelectric; S-scheme heterojunction; Solar-driven; Stirring.