Tuning oxygen vacancies in Bi4Ti3O12 nanosheets to boost piezo-photocatalytic activity

Piezo-photocatalysis has emerged as a promising strategy to address environmental pollution and the fast-growing energy shortage. Unfortunately, current efficiencies of piezo-photocatalysts are still far from ideal, improving their catalytic efficiency remains challenging. In this paper, we introduce oxygen vacancies (OVs) in Bi4Ti3O12 (BIT) nanosheets boost piezo-photocatalytic performance. Compared pristine BIT nanosheets, with an optimized OV concentration exhibit excellent activity, enhancement 2.2 times degradation rate constant (k = 0.214 min?1) for Rhodamine B (RhB). The effect OVs on adsorption Bader charges was also investigated using density functional theory (DFT) calculations, which shed light underlying mechanism that improves process presence OVs. Specifically, introduction increases charges, resulting charge transfer between O2/H2O BIT, thus facilitating process. This study provides deeper understanding into regulation enhanced activity opens new avenues designing high-performance piezo-photocatalysts.