Natural hematite-based self-poled piezo-responsive membrane for harvesting energy from water flow and catalytic removal of organic dye

Abstract

The energy crisis and environmental pollution have been increasing day by day due to the high consumption of nonrenewable energy which insists researchers discover alternative methods to harvest energy from waste materials and resources. This work reports the construction of the energy harvesting device using a purely natural α-hematite incorporated PVDF membrane. Doping of purely natural α-hematite led to the growth of polarisation forming the β-phase high which has been confirmed by FTIR and other theoretical methods (DFT). The structure morphology has been characterized by using basic characterization tools i.e XRD, SEM, EDAX, and TEM. The augmentation of the polarization has been established by the increased value of the dielectric constant. Herein, we have fabricated the device using PVF5 membrane that can develop voltage 42V, power 1328 μW/cm3 by finger tapping, and the device can also harvest energy even from the water flow from several sources and falling from different heights. Water pollution is another big concern in today's world along with the energy crisis. Piezocatalysis is one of the best-emerging technologies for the treatment of water pollution and this method has been employed in our study by using PVF5 membrane to degrade organic dye i.e RhB dye. 86% degradation of the dye in 40 minutes has been achieved due to the formation of several oxidative spices (ROS) like as •O−, •OH, e−, h+, etc. Using ultrasound-assisted piezocatalysis method, and even after repetitive use of it the efficiency does not reduce significantly. Henceforth this article reports the multifunctional purely natural α-hematite mediated membrane that can concomitantly harvest energy from mechanical as well as decontaminate water by degradation of organic pollutants from water.