A novel strategy to enhance the visible light driven photocatalytic activity of CuBi2O4 through its piezoelectric response

Piezocatalysis is realized in hydrothermally-derived CuBi2O4 nanorods for the first time. Through bi-harvesting of photo- and vibration energies, 98.1% Rhodamine B (RhB) can be degraded, which is significantly higher than ∼38.7% from single photocatalysis and ∼72.8% from single piezocatalysis. The enhanced catalytic activity is attributed to the intensified separation of electron-hole under the piezoelectric potential. Results show that CuBi2O4 is promising catalyst to decompose the organic pollutant in nature water.