Research Progress in Preparation and Piezoelectric Photocatalysis of Barium Titanate Thin Films

The coupling of piezoelectric catalysis and photocatalysis is called piezoelectric photocatalysis. As one of the most effective processes for wastewater treatment, piezoelectric photocatalysis has attracted extensive attention in the degradation of organic pollutants and microbial disinfection. However, the traditional piezoelectric photocatalytic materials often contain lead, which is easy to cause secondary pollution. Therefore, researchers are constantly exploring new piezoelectric materials to drive the piezoelectric catalytic process. As a typical piezoelectric semiconductor, BaTiO₃ has been widely used in many fields, such as hydrogen production through water decomposition, carbon dioxide reduction, bacterial disinfection and wastewater treatment, because of its low cost, strong piezoelectric activity and excellent piezoelectric catalytic performance. However, barium titanate has several problems, such as low photogenerated carrier separation rate, so its properties often need to be improved and optimized in the actual preparation process. On this basis, the principle, polarization mode, thin film preparation method and research progress of BaTiO₃ piezoelectric photocatalysis are reviewed and its future development trend is prospected.