Journal Home > Volume 11 , Issue 7

Photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants is of great significance for wastewater remediation but is still hindered by the poor catalytic efficiency of the catalysts. Herein, we report a strategy to simultaneously introduce piezocatalysis and to enhance the intrinsic photocatalysis in a single catalyst, which improved the performance for catalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) significantly. Specifically, piezoelectric BiFeO3 (BFO) nanotube doped with different contents of Gd and La (Bi0.9(GdxLa1-x)0.1FeO3) were produced by electrospinning. The doping led to a higher concentration of surface oxygen vacancy (OV) in Bi0.9Gd0.07La0.03FeO3, which effectively increased the piezoelectric field due to the deformation of BFO, and suppressed the recombination of photon-generated electron-hole pairs. The Bi0.9Gd0.07La0.03FeO3 nanotube showed excellent catalytic performance under simultaneous light irradiation and ultrasonic excitation, giving an extraordinary 95% degradation of MB within 90 min. These findings suggest that the piezoelectric effect combined with defect engineering can enhance the catalytic performance of Bi0.9Gd0.07La0.03FeO3 nanotube. This could potentially be extended to other catalytic systems for high-performance pollutant treatment.


menu
Abstract
Full text
Outline
Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Coupling of piezocatalysis and photocatalysis for efficient degradation of methylene blue by Bi0.9Gd0.07La0.03FeO3 nanotubes

Show Author's information Angom Devadatta MANIa,b,Jie LIa,b,Ziquan WANGcJiale ZHOUaHuaicheng XIANGaJinlai ZHAOaLibo DENGcHaitao YANGaLei YAOa( )
Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Special Functional Materials, Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory for Advanced Technology of Ceramics, Guangdong Research Center for Interfacial Engineering of Functional Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, China
Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems of Ministry of Education and Guangdong Province, College of Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518071, China

† Angom Devadatta Mani and Jie Li contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants is of great significance for wastewater remediation but is still hindered by the poor catalytic efficiency of the catalysts. Herein, we report a strategy to simultaneously introduce piezocatalysis and to enhance the intrinsic photocatalysis in a single catalyst, which improved the performance for catalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) significantly. Specifically, piezoelectric BiFeO3 (BFO) nanotube doped with different contents of Gd and La (Bi0.9(GdxLa1-x)0.1FeO3) were produced by electrospinning. The doping led to a higher concentration of surface oxygen vacancy (OV) in Bi0.9Gd0.07La0.03FeO3, which effectively increased the piezoelectric field due to the deformation of BFO, and suppressed the recombination of photon-generated electron-hole pairs. The Bi0.9Gd0.07La0.03FeO3 nanotube showed excellent catalytic performance under simultaneous light irradiation and ultrasonic excitation, giving an extraordinary 95% degradation of MB within 90 min. These findings suggest that the piezoelectric effect combined with defect engineering can enhance the catalytic performance of Bi0.9Gd0.07La0.03FeO3 nanotube. This could potentially be extended to other catalytic systems for high-performance pollutant treatment.

Keywords: photocatalysis, piezocatalysis, sonophotocatalysis, oxygen vacancy (OV)

References(65)

[1]
Kou JH, Lu CH, Wang J, et al. Selectivity enhancement in heterogeneous photocatalytic transformations. Chem Rev 2017, 117: 1445-1514.
[2]
Yang WY, Chen Y, Gao S, et al. Post-illumination activity of Bi2WO6 in the dark from the photocatalytic “memory” effect. J Adv Ceram 2021, 10: 355-367.
[3]
Wu YY, Gao ZR, Li H, et al. Promoting carrier separation efficiently by macroscopic polarization charges and interfacial modulation for photocatalysis. Chem Eng J 2021, 410: 128393.
[4]
Ma LL, Yang C, Tian XK, et al. Enhanced usage of visible light by BiSex for photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue in water via the tunable band gap and energy band position. J Clean Prod 2018, 171: 538-547.
[5]
Qiang TT, Chen L, Xia YJ, et al. Dual modified MoS2/SnS2 photocatalyst with Z-scheme heterojunction and vacancies defects to achieve a superior performance in Cr (VI) reduction and dyes degradation. J Clean Prod 2021, 291: 125213.
[6]
Sadeghzadeh-Attar A. Photocatalytic degradation evaluation of N-Fe codoped aligned TiO2 nanorods based on the effect of annealing temperature. J Adv Ceram 2020, 9: 107-122.
[7]
Shao YQ, Feng KK, Guo J, et al. Electronic structure and enhanced photoelectrocatalytic performance of RuxZn1-xO/Ti electrodes. J Adv Ceram 2021, 10: 1025-1041.
[8]
Xi YM, Zhang Y, Cai XT, et al. PtCu thickness-modulated interfacial charge transfer and surface reactivity in stacked graphene/Pd@PtCu heterostructures for highly efficient visible-light reduction of CO2 to CH4. Appl Catal B Environ 2022, 305: 121069.
[9]
Zhong SX, Xi YM, Chen Q, et al. Bridge engineering in photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis. Nanoscale 2020, 12: 5764-5791.
[10]
Liu YL, Wu JM. Synergistically catalytic activities of BiFeO3/TiO2 core-shell nanocomposites for degradation of organic dye molecule through piezophototronic effect. Nano Energy 2019, 56: 74-81.
[11]
Ma JP, Ren J, Jia YM, et al. High efficiency bi-harvesting light/vibration energy using piezoelectric zinc oxide nanorods for dye decomposition. Nano Energy 2019, 62: 376-383.
[12]
Pan L, Sun SC, Chen Y, et al. Advances in piezo-phototronic effect enhanced photocatalysis and photoelectrocatalysis. Adv Energy Mater 2020, 10: 2000214.
[13]
Grinberg I, West DV, Torres M, et al. Perovskite oxides for visible-light-absorbing ferroelectric and photovoltaic materials. Nature 2013, 503: 509-512.
[14]
Xu SY, Guo LM, Sun QJ, et al. Piezotronic effect enhanced plasmonic photocatalysis by AuNPs/BaTiO3 heterostructures. Adv Funct Mater 2019, 29: 1808737.
[15]
Li HD, Sang YH, Chang SJ, et al. Enhanced ferroelectric-nanocrystal-based hybrid photocatalysis by ultrasonic-wave-generated piezophototronic effect. Nano Lett 2015, 15: 2372-2379.
[16]
Li S, Zhao ZC, Yu DF, et al. Few-layer transition metal dichalcogenides (MoS2, WS2, and WSe2) for water splitting and degradation of organic pollutants: Understanding the piezocatalytic effect. Nano Energy 2019, 66: 104083.
[17]
Xu J, Lu QL, Lin JF, et al. Enhanced ferro-/piezoelectric properties of tape-casting-derived Er3+-doped Ba0.85Ca0.15Ti0.9Zr0.1O3 optoelectronic thick films. J Adv Ceram 2020, 9: 693-702.
[18]
Yu DF, Liu ZH, Zhang JM, et al. Enhanced catalytic performance by multi-field coupling in KNbO3 nanostructures: Piezo-photocatalytic and ferro-photoelectrochemical effects. Nano Energy 2019, 58: 695-705.
[19]
Fan KH, Yu C, Cheng ST, et al. Metallic Bi self-deposited BiOCl promoted piezocatalytic removal of carbamazepine. Surf Interfaces 2021, 26: 101335.
[20]
Li H, Li J, Ai ZH, et al. Oxygen vacancy-mediated photocatalysis of BiOCl: Reactivity, selectivity, and perspectives. Angew Chem Int Ed 2018, 57: 122-138.
[21]
Chen XB, Liu L, Yu PY, et al. Increasing solar absorption for photocatalysis with black hydrogenated titanium dioxide nanocrystals. Science 2011, 331: 746-750.
[22]
Corby S, Francàs L, Kafizas A, et al. Determining the role of oxygen vacancies in the photoelectrocatalytic performance of WO3 for water oxidation. Chem Sci 2020, 11: 2907-2914.
[23]
Guo HL, Zhu Q, Wu XL, et al. Oxygen deficient ZnO1-x nanosheets with high visible light photocatalytic activity. Nanoscale 2015, 7: 7216-7223.
[24]
Wang YC, Wu JM. Effect of controlled oxygen vacancy on H2-production through the piezocatalysis and piezophototronics of ferroelectric R3C ZnSnO3 nanowires. Adv Funct Mater 2020, 30: 1907619.
[25]
Ou G, Li DK, Pan W, et al. Arc-melting to narrow the bandgap of oxide semiconductors. Adv Mater 2015, 27: 2589-2594.
[26]
You HL, Wu Z, Zhang LH, et al. Harvesting the vibration energy of BiFeO3 nanosheets for hydrogen evolution. Angew Chem Int Ed 2019, 58: 11779-11784.
[27]
Catalan G, Scott JF. Physics and applications of bismuth ferrite. Adv Mater 2009, 21: 2463-2485.
[28]
Xia L, Tybell T, Selbach SM. Bi vacancy formation in BiFeO3 epitaxial thin films under compressive (001)-strain from first principles. J Mater Chem C 2019, 7: 4870-4878.
[29]
Noguchi Y, Matsuo H, Kitanaka Y, et al. Ferroelectrics with a controlled oxygen-vacancy distribution by design. Sci Rep 2019, 9: 4225.
[30]
Yu YG, Chen G, Zhou YS, et al. Recent advances in rare-earth elements modification of inorganic semiconductor-based photocatalysts for efficient solar energy conversion: A review. J Rare Earths 2015, 33: 453-462.
[31]
Purusottam Reddy B, Park SH. Improved photocatalytic activity of BiFeO3 nanoparticles upon Gd doping. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Inventive Research in Material Science and Technology, Coimbatore, India, 2019: 020001.
[32]
Lan SY, Yu C, Sun F, et al. Tuning piezoelectric driven photocatalysis by La-doped magnetic BiFeO3-based multiferroics for water purification. Nano Energy 2022, 93: 106792.
[33]
Yang GD, Chen Q, Wang WJ, et al. Cocatalyst engineering in piezocatalysis: A promising strategy for boosting hydrogen evolution. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 2021, 13: 15305-15314.
[34]
Reddy BP, Sekhar MC, Prakash BP, et al. Photocatalytic, magnetic, and electrochemical properties of La doped BiFeO3 nanoparticles. Ceram Int 2018, 44: 19512-19521.
[35]
Gao F, Chen XY, Yin KB, et al. Visible-light photocatalytic properties of weak magnetic BiFeO3 nanoparticles. Adv Mater 2007, 19: 2889-2892.
[36]
Suresh P, Babu PD, Srinath S. Role of (La,Gd) co-doping on the enhanced dielectric and magnetic properties of BiFeO3 ceramics. Ceram Int 2016, 42: 4176-4184.
[37]
Fan HJ, Gösele U, Zacharias M. Formation of nanotubes and hollow nanoparticles based on Kirkendall and diffusion processes: A review. Small 2007, 3: 1660-1671.
[38]
Yin YD, Rioux RM, Erdonmez CK, et al. Formation of hollow nanocrystals through the nanoscale Kirkendall effect. Science 2004, 304: 711-714.
[39]
Ji DX, Fan L, Tao L, et al. The Kirkendall effect for engineering oxygen vacancy of hollow Co3O4 nanoparticles toward high-performance portable zinc-air batteries. Angew Chem Int Ed 2019, 58: 13840-13844.
[40]
Irfan S, Rizwan S, Shen Y, et al. The gadolinium (Gd3+) and tin (Sn4+) co-doped BiFeO3 nanoparticles as new solar light active photocatalyst. Sci Rep 2017, 7: 42493.
[41]
Zhang N, Chen D, Niu F, et al. Enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity of Gd-doped BiFeO3 nanoparticles and mechanism insight. Sci Rep 2016, 6: 26467.
[42]
Kumar M, Arora M, Chauhan S, et al. Raman spectroscopy probed spin-two phonon coupling and improved magnetic and optical properties in Dy and Zr substituted BiFeO3 nanoparticles. J Alloys Compd 2017, 692: 236-242.
[43]
Yang Y, Sun JY, Zhu K, et al. Raman study of BiFeO3 with different excitation wavelengths. Phys B Condens Matter 2009, 404: 171-174.
[44]
Das S, Nayak GC, Sahu SK, et al. Microwave absorption properties of double-layer composites using CoZn/NiZn/ MnZn-ferrite and titanium dioxide. J Magn Magn Mater 2015, 377: 111-116.
[45]
Yang TT, Wei J, Guo YX, et al. Manipulation of oxygen vacancy for high photovoltaic output in bismuth ferrite films. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 2019, 11: 23372-23381.
[46]
Qiao L, Bi XF. Direct observation of oxygen vacancy and its effect on the microstructure, electronic and transport properties of sputtered LaNiO3-δ films on Si substrates. Thin Solid Films 2010, 519: 943-946.
[47]
Tan HQ, Zhao Z, Zhu WB, et al. Oxygen vacancy enhanced photocatalytic activity of pervoskite SrTiO3. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 2014, 6: 19184-19190.
[48]
Miriyala N, Prashanthi K, Thundat T. Oxygen vacancy dominant strong visible photoluminescence from BiFeO3 nanotubes. Phys Status Solidi RRL Rapid Res Lett 2013, 7: 668-671.
[49]
Yang B, Bian JH, Wang L, et al. Enhanced photocatalytic activity of perovskite NaNbO3 by oxygen vacancy engineering. Phys Chem Chem Phys 2019, 21: 11697-11704.
[50]
Lan SY, Yu C, Wu EY, et al. Self-powered water flow-triggered piezocatalytic generation of reactive oxygen species for water purification in simulated water drainage. ACS EST Eng 2022, 2: 101-109.
[51]
Liao ZM, Liu KJ, Zhang JM, et al. Effect of surface states on electron transport in individual ZnO nanowires. Phys Lett A 2007, 367: 207-210.
[52]
Liao ZM, Zhang HZ, Zhou YB, et al. Surface effects on photoluminescence of single ZnO nanowires. Phys Lett A 2008, 372: 4505-4509.
[53]
Wang D, Seo HW, Tin CC, et al. Effects of postgrowth annealing treatment on the photoluminescence of zinc oxide nanorods. J Appl Phys 2006, 99: 113509.
[54]
Jenkins K, Kelly S, Nguyen V, et al. Piezoelectric diphenylalanine peptide for greatly improved flexible nanogenerators. Nano Energy 2018, 51: 317-323.
[55]
Tao K, Xue B, Li Q, et al. Stable and optoelectronic dipeptide assemblies for power harvesting. Mater Today 2019, 30: 10-16.
[56]
Xie SH, Gannepalli A, Chen QN, et al. High resolution quantitative piezoresponse force microscopy of BiFeO3 nanofibers with dramatically enhanced sensitivity. Nanoscale 2012, 4: 408-413.
[57]
Mushtaq F, Chen XZ, Hoop M, et al. Piezoelectrically enhanced photocatalysis with BiFeO3 nanostructures for efficient water remediation. iScience 2018, 4: 236-246.
[58]
Fei LF, Hu YM, Li X, et al. Electrospun bismuth ferrite nanofibers for potential applications in ferroelectric photovoltaic devices. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces 2015, 7: 3665-3670.
[59]
Mani AD, Soibam I. Dielectric, magnetic and optical properties of (Bi,Gd)FeO3-Ni0.8Zn0.2Fe2O4 nanocomposites. Ceram Int 2018, 44: 2419-2425.
[60]
Flint EB, Suslick KS. The temperature of cavitation. Science 1991, 253: 1397-1399.
[61]
Talukdar S, Dutta RK. A mechanistic approach for superoxide radicals and singlet oxygen mediated enhanced photocatalytic dye degradation by selenium doped ZnS nanoparticles. RSC Adv 2016, 6: 928-936.
[62]
Zhao K, Ouyang BS, Yang Y. Enhancing photocurrent of radially polarized ferroelectric BaTiO3 materials by ferro-pyro-phototronic effect. iScience 2018, 3: 208-216.
[63]
Wang SS, Wu Z, Chen J, et al. Lead-free sodium niobate nanowires with strong piezo-catalysis for dye wastewater degradation. Ceram Int 2019, 45: 11703-11708.
[64]
Park BW, Zhang XL, Johansson EMJ, et al. Analysis of crystalline phases and integration modelling of charge quenching yields in hybrid lead halide perovskite solar cell materials. Nano Energy 2017, 40: 596-606.
[65]
Zhu SS, Wang DW. Photocatalysis: Basic principles, diverse forms of implementations and emerging scientific opportunities. Adv Energy Mater 2017, 7: 1700841.
File
40145_0590_ESM.pdf (1.1 MB)
Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Rights and permissions

Publication history

Received: 12 January 2022
Revised: 14 March 2022
Accepted: 23 March 2022
Published: 02 July 2022
Issue date: July 2022

Copyright

© The Author(s) 2022.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Shenzhen Government’s Plan of Science and Technology (JCYJ20190808121407676), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2020A1515011127), and the Shenzhen University Initiative Research Program (2019005).

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Return