Progress in defect engineering strategies to enhance piezoelectric catalysis for efficient water treatment and energy regeneration

Piezoelectric catalysis shows immense potential as a groundbreaking eco-friendly technology due to its exceptional efficiency, energy preservation, and environmental conservation. However, few catalytic sites and low charge transfer efficiency are major bottlenecks for its application in fields like water treatment and energy regeneration. Defect engineering is a strategy that can help enhance the activity of piezoelectric catalysis by creating defect sites, such as activating intrinsic defects, introducing vacancy defects, heteroatom doping, and constructing complex defects. This paper reviews the recent advancements in defect engineering strategies for enhancing piezoelectric catalysis. It covers the introduction of the piezoelectric catalytic system and defect engineering, focuses on the mechanisms of different defects on piezoelectric catalytic activity, discusses various defect molding methods, and reviews the application of defect engineering strategies to enhance piezoelectric catalysis in water treatment (degradation of organic pollutants, sterilization) and energy regeneration (H2 production, CO2 reduction). Finally, insights and perspectives on future research directions and the development of defect engineering strategies for enhancing piezoelectric catalysis are given.