Ball milling induced strong polarization electric fields in Cu₃B₂O₆ crystals for high efficiency piezocatalysis

Harvesting mechanical energy by piezocatalyst from ultrasonication offers an unprecedented opportunity for environment remediation. However, the piezocatalytic efficiency is seriously hindered by current catalysts and the harvest of energy. Herein, for the first time, by agitation of a kind of borate like Cu3B2O6 (CBO) material through ball milling (BM) could decompose pollutants efficiently. The efficiency of CBO for Rhodamine B under BM is 6.4 times that of benchmark BaTiO3, and 10.4 times that of CBO under ultrasonication. Moreover, CBO also exhibits an excellent performance for the inactivation of Escherichia coil K-12 and a good catalytic cycle stability. The high catalytic efficiency can be attributed to the formed strong piezoelectric field in CBO and abundant reactive species generated under BM. The results give an insight into the development of high efficient piezocatalytic reactions based on the piezocatalysts and BM combined strategy.