posted on 2020-03-12, 18:49authored byEnzhu Lin, Ni Qin, Jiang Wu, Baowei Yuan, Zihan Kang, Dinghua Bao
Powder-form
piezocatalysts suffer from poor recyclability and pose
a potential threat of creating serious secondary pollution, which
restrict their practical applications. Thin-film piezocatalysts, which
not only exhibit good recyclability but also fully contact with solution,
are believed to be one of the solutions to address these problems.
In this work, the nanostructured BaTiO3 (BTO) thin films
were fabricated by a facile hydrothermal method for their potential
applications in piezocatalysis. The vertically standing BTO nanosheets
grown on the top of TiO2 nanorod arrays exhibited superior
piezocatalytic performance as well as piezo-electrochemical property.
Given the different strain states between thin-film piezocatalyst
and powder-form piezocatalyst, both the impact force of water and
isostatic pressure are taken into consideration in finite element
method (FEM) simulation. The FEM simulation shows that a stronger
piezoelectric filed can be built in BTO nanosheets because of their
easier deformation, and thus can lead to a higher piezocatalytic degradation
efficiency. Our work presented here is expected to provide a potential
route for the nanoengineering of thin-film piezocatalysts and clarify
the catalytic mechanism for substrate-fixed piezocatalysts.