Ferroelectric BaTiO <sub>3</sub>/Pr <sub>2</sub>O <sub>3</sub> heterojunction harvesting room-temperature cold–hot alternation energy for efficiently pyrocatalytic dye decomposition
Zheng Wu, Taosheng Xu, Luohong Zhang, Tingting Liu, Zhansheng Wu, Gangqiang Zhu, Yanmin Jia
Abstract
The strong pyrocatalytic dye decomposition of the BaTiO<sub>3</sub>/Pr<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> heterojunction catalyst under cold-hot alternation conditions has been demonstrated in this work. For the pure BaTiO<sub>3 </sub>nanofibers, ~54% rhodamine B (RhB) dye is decomposed under 29–57 ℃ cold-hot alternation. With the loading content of Pr<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> increases from 0 to 4 wt%, the pyrocatalytic decomposition ratio of the RhB solution increased first and then decreases, eventually achieving a maximum of 91% at 3.0 wt%. The enhanced pyrocatalytic performance after loading Pr<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> can be attributed to the internal electric field of the heterojunction, which effectively separates the positive and negative charges. The strongly pyrocatalytic performance of BaTiO<sub>3</sub>/Pr<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> makes it hopeful for application in dye wastewater treatment through harvesting the environmental cold-hot temperature alternation thermal energy in future.