Piezoelectric materials for pollutants degradation: State-of-the-art accomplishments and prospects

Piezoelectric catalysis, a new catalytic method, is widely used in the field of environmental sanitation, including waste water treatment and dye degradation. However, in the face of the growing environmental pollution problem, the efficiency of piezoelectric catalysis is still hampered by the stress variation in the natural environment. Therefore, it is particularly important to improve the catalytic efficiency of piezoelectric materials. We divide piezoelectric materials into two categories: inorganic piezoelectric materials and organic piezoelectric materials. Then the mainstream inorganic piezoelectric materials are divided into four subcategories, namely:(1) MTiO3(M = Ba, Sr),(2) bi-class catalytic materials,(3) MoX2(X = S,Se), and(4) ZnO piezoelectric materials. The mainstream organic piezoelectric materials are divided into PVDF and g-C3N4materials. At the same time, the above materials are summarized to explain the excellent performance of materials from the perspective of structure and piezoelectric principle. In addition,we summarized the modification methods that can be applied to piezoelectric materials:(1) Morphology methods,(2) composites with heterojunctions, and(3) surface modification. Finally, we summarized the prospects of piezoelectric materials in the field of environment and water treatment.