Ferroelectric BaTiO₃/Pr₂O₃ heterojunction harvesting room-temperature cold–hot alternation energy for efficiently pyrocatalytic dye decomposition

The strong pyrocatalytic dye decomposition of the BaTiO₃/Pr₂O₃ heterojunction catalyst under cold–hot alternation conditions has been demonstrated in this work. For pure BaTiO₃ nanofibers, ~54% rhodamine B (RhB) dye is decomposed under the cold–hot alternation of 29–57 ℃. With the loading content of Pr₂O₃ increases from 0 to 4 wt%, the pyrocatalytic decomposition ratio of RhB solution increases first and then decreases, eventually achieving a maximum of 91% at 3 wt%. The enhanced pyrocatalytic performance after loading Pr₂O₃ can be attributed to an internal electric field of the heterojunction, which effectively separates positive and negative charges. The strongly pyrocatalytic performance of BaTiO₃/Pr₂O₃ makes it hopeful for applications in the dye wastewater treatment through harvesting the environmental cold–hot temperature alternation thermal energy in future.