The technology of piezocatalysis has been studied in the ultrasonic system that requires large, bulky, and highly expensive facilities and has space constrain. Korean researchers at Seoul National University of Science and Technology (Seoultech) report the new strategy that can harvest the fluid kinetic energy for piezocatalytic remediation of water. This study appears in the journal, Nano Energy, in January.

Recently, piezocatalysis is considered as a promising green and sustainable technology because of its ability to promote passive conversion of natural mechanical energy, e.g., ultrasonic, wind, and tide, into electrochemical energy.

Despite these advantages, previous studies were conducted only in the ultrasonic system that has space constrain and require large, bulky, and expensive facilities, because of the low electron concentration of piezocatalytic materials that require the thermal excitation for the catalytic reaction.

Prof. Young-In Lee’s research team has now developed a new and pioneering strategy improving the energy harvesting properties of piezocatalyst, resulting in fluid kinetic energy-based piezocatalytic decontamination of water. The research team synthesized the black BaTiO3-x nanoparticles that have crystalline core and oxygen vacancy in the surface layer to increase the concentration of electrons that participate in the catalytic reaction with high energy. The black BaTiO3-x was able to remove contaminants by utilizing the fluid kinetic energy from water flow, and showed about 4.3 times higher efficiency compared to the commercial white BaTiO3. These results suggest that the application of piezocatalyt can be expended to various systemsthat utilize natural mechanical energy such as wind, tide, etc.

[Reference] Myeongjun Ji, Jeong Hyun Kim, Cheol-Hui Ryu, Young-In Lee, Synthesis of self-modified black BaTiO3-x nanoparticles and effect of oxygen vacancy for the expansion of piezocatalytic application, Nano Energy, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2022.106993.

[Main Author] Myeongjun Ji(Seoul National University of Science and Technology), Young-In Lee(Seoul National University of Science and Technology)

* Contact : Professor Young-In Lee (youngin@seoultech.ac.kr)