Self-regulated interfacial-enhanced piezo-phototronic effect of BNT@Mn-SnO2 heterostructures for superlative tetracycline degradation
Sial Atif, Dar Ahmed Afzal, Labidi Abdelkader, Ximing Li, Qibing Dong, Chuanyi Wang
Abstract
The piezo-promoted photocatalysis has recently been evolved as an auspicious technique to achieve high-efficiency and scalable organic pollutant degradation. Herein, a visible light active heterocomposite BNT@Mn-SnO 2 (BSM) with plate-like Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 TiO 3 (BNT) perovskite and Mn Nps decorated SnO 2 was synthesized for the piezo-photocatalytic degradation of Tetracycline (TC). The piezo-photocatalytic degradation efficiency of TC reached 95.4% in 60 min, and the rate constant k reaches 0.078 min −1 which is 13 times and 2.8 times higher than the piezocatalytic and photocatalytic k values, individually. The meticulous built-in electric field regulation of BNT modified the band-gap structure and induced efficient charge separation in BSM nanocomposite. Furthermore, the plasmonic effect of the Mn Nps tuned the band-edge positions of SnO 2 by introducing impurity energy levels and provided an alternative source of charge storage, and amplified the light absorption range of BSM nanocomposite. The oxidative species, particularly OH • played a substantial role in the piezo-photodegradation process than O 2 •- and 1 O 2 . Besides, the toxicity evaluation revealed that the self-regulated interfacial-enhanced piezo-phototronic effect of BSM nanocomposite can deliberately reduce the ecotoxicity level into smaller and non-toxic compounds. This work provides a novel strategy to design efficient and sustainable piezo-photocatalysts for environmental remediation.