Impact of oxygen vacancy occupancy on piezo-catalytic activity of BaTiO3 nanobelt

BaTiO3 nanobelt featuring controlled oxygen vacancies, namely BTO-OV-X (X represents time (h) of vacuum heat-treatment), were prepared to systematically investigate the effect of oxygen vacancies occupancy on pizeocatalytic performance for degradation of organic pollutant. Remarkably, the creation of oxygen vacancies on BaTiO3 can mediate the piezocatalytic activity. The piezocatalytic activity exhibited a volcano-type trend with increasing oxygen vacancies. Results from first-principles density functional theoretical (DFT) calculations and O2-temperature programmed desorption (O2-TPD) measurement indicated that the presence of oxygen vacancies could efficiently adsorb and activate O2 on the surface of BaTiO3 nanobelt and consequently enhance piezocatalytic activity. Importantly, with the aid of piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) measurement, the intrinsic reason of volcano-type trend of oxygen vacancy-activity was well unveiled. This work reveals the effect and mechanism of oxygen vacancy occupancy on enhancing piezocatalytic activity of BaTiO3 nanobelt and will shed light on design of efficient piezocatalysts in the future.