Enhancement of the piezocatalytic properties of BaTiO3 dendrite by annealing modulation

Annealing treatment is believed to improve the catalytic performance of crystal structure and alter the ferroelectric properties of piezoelectric catalysts. However, nano-catalysts easily agglomerate during the calcination process, which lead to a sharp drop in catalytic performance. Herein, we synthesized BaTiO3 dendrite catalyst and modulated its crystal structure and ferroelectric properties via annealing treatment. A diagram of the crystal structure change mechanism at different annealing temperatures was drawn. The results show compared with unannealed BaTiO3 crystals, BaTiO3 crystals exhibit the improved piezocatalytic performance when the annealing temperature is 700–800 ℃, respectively. However, the piezocatalytic activities of the samples decreased with the increase of the annealing temperature over 800 ℃, which is mainly attributed to the random distribution of electric domains in BaTiO3 polycrystalline crystals. This work provides the references for improving the piezocatalyst's activity via a simple method.