Pulsed Laser-triggered Piezoelectric Photocatalytic CO 2 Reduction Over Tetragonal BaTiO 3 Nanocubes.

The recombination of photo-induced carriers in photocatalysts has been considered as one of the most barriers for the increase of photocatalysis efficiency. Piezoelectric photocatalyst opens a new route to realize rapid carrier separation by mechanically distorting lattice of piezoelectric nanocrystals to form a piezoelectric potential within the nanocrystals, generally requaring external force (e.g., the ultrasonic radiation, mechanical stirring and ball milling). In this study, the low power ultraviolet (UV) pulsed laser (PL, 3 W, 355 nm) as UV light source can trigger piezoelectric photocatalytic CO 2 reduction of tetragonal BaTiO 3 (BTO-T) in the absence of applied force. The transient tremendous light pressure (5.7×10 7  Pa, 2.7 W) of 355 nm PL not only bends the energy band of BTO-T, thus allowing reactions that cannot theoretically occur to take place, but also induce a pulsed build-in electric field to determine an efficient photoinduced carrier separation. On that basis, the PL triggered piezoelectric photocatalytic CO 2 reduction realizes the reported highest performance, reaching the millimole level CO yield of 52.9 mmol g -1 h -1 , and achieving efficient photocatalytic CO 2 reduction in the continuous catalytic system. The method in this study is promising to contribute to the design of efficient piezoelectric photocatalytic reactions. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.