Water flow drived piezo-photocatalytic flexible films: Bi-piezoelectric integration of ZnO nanorods and PVDF

Piezoelectric photocatalysis technology is widely employed to achieve excellent photocatalytic performance, as the internal electric field generated by the piezoelectric material can effectively accelerate the separation of photogenerated carriers. However, PVDF as a commonly used piezoelectric photocatalytic substrate, has a lower piezoelectric property, so it needs to be modified by other methods to improve its piezoelectric performance. In this work, piezoelectric semiconductor photocatalyst ZnO was selected to combine with PVDF film for a bi-piezoelectric integration effect. Furthermore, in order to make the PVDF film generate a piezoelectric potential under a low-density energy field, ZnO powders exposed with different proportions of polar plane (1 0 0) plane were prepared separately and added into the films. The result shows that the ZnO-3@PVDF film with more extensive (1 0 0) polar plane exposure exhibits best piezoelectric effect for enhancing photocatalytic activity with magnetic stirring, and the increase under water flow effect is 10 times that of ZnO-3@PDMS. Moreover, experimental results show that higher piezoelectric potential is more conducive to the improvement of photocatalytic activity. This work developed a new piezo-photocatalytic flexible film for enhanced photocatalytic activity under low density flow water energy, and it offers great potential for eliminating environmental pollution.