Piezo-photocatalysis has emerged as a promising strategy for addressing environmental pollution and the rapidly escalating energy crisis. However, it is still challenging to improve its degradation rate constant. To address this issue, herein, we proposed an innovative strategy of combining both hydrothermal synthesis and high energy mechanical ball milling process in AgNbO3 (AN) photo-catalyst. It is interesting that the hydrothermally synthesized and ball-milled AN demonstrated a record degradation rate constant (k) of 0.213 min−1 for Rhodamine B (RhB), with an 11-fold improvement compared to the un-ball-milled samples. Furthermore, the degradation rate remained high level at 97.3 % after four cycles. The distinguished performance is attributed to the production of large amount of OVs (oxygen vacancies) in hydrothermally synthesized and ball-milled AN, which narrows the bandgap, reduces the recombination of photo-generated carriers, and enhances the absorption of O₂ and OH⁻, thereby efficiently generating superoxide radicals (•O₂⁻) and hydroxyl radicals (•OH). This work presents a novel approach for enhancing the piezo-photocatalytic activity of lead-free piezoelectric materials, which holds broad application prospects in the catalytic treatment of dye wastewater.
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