Strong tribocatalytic water purification of ferroelectric (1-x)Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3-xSrTiO3 through harvesting friction energy

Various industrial dye wastewaters are difficult to treat and have resulted in serious environmental problems. The recent tribocatalytic technology, which degrades dyes by harvesting friction energy, has brought great hope. The ferroelectric property is helpful for enhancing charge transfer and storage, which is expected to result in the strong tribocatalytic performance for dye wastewater treatment. In this study, (1- x )Bi 0.5 Na 0.5 TiO 3 - x SrTiO 3 (abbreviated as (1- x )BNT- x ST, x  = 0.2, 0.25, 0.3, 0.35, 0.4) particles are produced employing the traditional solid-state sintering technique. It is found that the 0.7BNT-0.3ST powder catalyst can behave has the maximum tribocatalytic performance with a 96 % degradation ratio for Rhodamine B (RhB) dyes after being stirred for 3.5h. The experiments demonstrate that these primary active substances during the catalytic process are ⋅OH and h + . The 0.7BNT-0.3ST has excellent ferroelectric properties and high dielectric constant, which may contribute to the excellent tribocatalytic performance. Furthermore, degradation ratio of RhB dye by 0.7BNT-0.3ST powder can still reach 89 % after three cycles. The ferroelectric 0.7BNT-0.3ST powder, with its advantages of excellent catalytic performance, simple synthesis route, and low cost, is an ideal option for the water purification by harvesting the friction energy has potential application prospects.