Abstract
Piezocatalysis is a novel method that can be applied for degradation of organic pollutants in wastewater. In this paper, ferroelectric nanowires of antimony sulfoiodide (SbSI) have been fabricated using a sonochemical method. Methyl orange (MO) was chosen as a typical pollutant, as it is widely used as a dye in industry. An aqueous solution of MO at a concentration of 30 mg/L containing SbSI nanowires (6 g/L) was subjected to ultrasonic vibration. High degradation efficiency of 99.5% was achieved after an extremely short period of ultrasonic irradiation (40 s). The large reaction rate constant of 0.126(8) s−1 was determined for piezocatalytic MO decomposition. This rate constant is two orders of magnitude larger than values of reaction rate constants reported in the literature for the most efficient piezocatalysts. These promising experimental results have proved a great potential of SbSI nanowires for their application in environmental purification and renewable energy conversion.
Highlights
The pollution of water is recognized as one of the major global problems that have to be solved in the near future
Over the last several years, a lot of different piezoelectric materials have been proposed for application in ultrasound-assisted piezocatalysis, including BaTiO3 nanostructures [8,9,10,11], SrTiO3 nanocrystals [12], BiFeO3 micro-sheets [13], Bi2 WO6 nanosheets [14], MoS2 nanoflowers [15], Na0.5 K0.5 NbO3 [16], NiO nanoparticles [17], Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT)
The reaction rate constant of piezocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) by SbSI nanowires was compared with values of this parameter achieved for other piezocatalysts (Table 1)
Summary
The pollution of water is recognized as one of the major global problems that have to be solved in the near future. Induced catalysis, known as piezocatalysis [2,3], is a new alternative method for contaminants degradation In this process, a mechanical energy (e.g., ultrasonic vibration) is converted into chemical energy or an external mechanical-force-induced piezopotential [4,5] promotes photocatalytic activity of piezoelectric material [6,7]. Jin et al [8] have recently prepared BaTiO3 nanowires by the sol-gel-based electrospinning technique and used this ferroelectric material for a degradation of methyl orange solution under ultrasonic vibration. They have found that the piezocatalytic activity of BaTiO3 nanowires is highly sensitive to its microstructure, including phase structure, crystallite size, specific surface area and nanowire diameter [8]. The reaction rate constants and degradation efficiencies were determined and compared to these parameter of other nanomaterials known in the literature as good piezo- and photocatalysts
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