Oxygen vacancy-enhanced piezo-photocatalytic for tetracycline hydrochloride degradation in wastewater and H₂...

Piezo-photocatalysis technology can convert both mechanical energy and solar energy into chemical energy, which has important application value in environmental remediation. However, the activity of piezoelectric catalysts is limited by weak piezoelectricity, resulting in low efficiency in generating photogenerated electron-hole pairs and difficulty in carrier migration. This work achieved piezo-photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline and H₂ production via the synergistic effect of defects and piezoelectric polarization, and further revealed the synergistic catalytic reaction mechanism of SrTiO₃ (STO). The introduced oxygen vacancy defects changed the local dipole state, which was beneficial for enhancing the piezoelectric polarization of STO, and promoted the separation of photogenerated carriers and the generation of effective active oxygen species (such as photogenerated holes and superoxide radical). This study sheds light on the rational design of defect-based piezoelectric catalysts to enhance piezo-photocatalytic performance.