https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-04029-7
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Piezo-photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutant by a novel BaTiO3–NiO composite
1
Department of Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, 202002, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India
2
Industrial Chemistry Research Laboratory, Department of Industrial Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Aligarh Muslim University, 202002, Aligarh, India
3
National Forensic Sciences University, 403401, Ponda, Goa, India
4
Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi, 110007, New Delhi, India
Received:
21
January
2023
Accepted:
27
April
2023
Published online:
13
May
2023
Recombination of charge carriers restricts the performance of conventional catalysts. Introducing piezoelectric materials can enhance the catalytic performance by mitigating the recombination. Herein, a noble metal-free BaTiO3–NiO composite catalyst was synthesized by a cost-effective sol-precipitation route and utilized to facilitate the decoloration of methylene blue. The XRD and FTIR pattern showed that no other phase was present apart from BaTiO3 and NiO for the composite. Raman spectra showed all the modes corresponding to tetragonal BaTiO3 and cubic NiO. The piezo-photo-catalytic activity for heterostructure was substantially higher than the individual photocatalytic and piezocatalytic activity. The dye followed a pseudo-first-order reaction under the combined effect of ultrasonication and UV irradiation, giving a remarkable high rate constant of 0.028 min−1 and 90% degradation. This enhanced degradation performance, which is attributed to the synergistic coupling between photocatalytic and piezocatalytic effects, can provide a future strategy for the development of piezo-photocatalysts for environmental remediation.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-023-04029-7.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2023
