Facilitating flexoelectric effect in BaTiO3 ceramic for pollutant removal application via piezocatalysis process

Flexoelectricity is an inherent property of some insulators, causing them to undergo polarization in response to non-uniform or inhomogeneous deformation. Further, with advanced scientific knowledge, its applicability is increasing day by day. The present study reports one of the possible applications of the flexoelectric effect in the catalysis field. For this, the sintered BaTiO3 ceramic pellet was subjected to 150° C temperature for 2 h which in response created oxygen vacancies on the BaTiO3 ceramic pellet. Furthermore, due to heat treatment, there is a generation of strained surface whereby developing flexoelectric effect on the surface generating higher piezoelectric potential on the surface. Piezoelectric force microscopy (PFM) was employed to analyze the amplification of piezopotential resulting from a strained surface. The enhanced piezopotential contributed towards more piezocatalytic activity whereby efficiently degraded Methylene Blue (MB) dye. As a result, the flexoelectric effect in the BaTiO3 ceramic pellet showed 1.47 times more MB dye degradation compared to the sintered BaTiO3 ceramic pellet.