Retrievable Hierarchically Porous Ferroelectric Ceramics for “Greening” the Piezo-Catalysis Process

Abstract

Powder-based piezo-catalysis, as an effective approach to degrade wastewater and produce hydrogen from water splitting, has been widely used in the field of energy conservation and pollution reduction. However, these hard-to-recycle powders pose a challenge of secondary pollution in the environment. As a result, this paper provides an alternative strategy based on the manufacture of porous ceramics as a green chemistry approach to replace ferroelectric powders currently used in traditional piezo-catalysis. The piezo-catalytic properties of Ba0.75Sr0.25TiO3 (BST) ceramics prepared using freeze casting and direct ink writing techniques are investigated in detail. The positive effect of introducing micro- and macro-pores is explored and discovered, where a BST ceramic with hierarchical pore channels is prepared by a combination of direct ink writing and freeze casting and exhibts the highest first-order kinetic rate constant per mass of catalysts, k, of up to 2.91 min−1 kg−1 compared to bulk BST ceramics. This study therefore provides the first report for the benefits of hierarchical porous ferroelectric ceramics used in water splitting, with an average H2 production rate reaching 848.88 nmol g−1 h−1.