Engineering the Defects and Microstructures in Ferroelectrics for Enhanced/Novel Properties: An Emerging Way to Cope with Energy Crisis and Environmental Pollution

Abstract

In the past century, ferroelectrics are well known in electroceramics and microelectronics for their unique ferroelectric, piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and photovoltaic effects. Nowadays, the advances in understanding and tuning of these properties have greatly promoted a broader application potential especially in energy and environmental fields, by harvesting solar, mechanical, and heat energies. For example, high piezoelectricity and high pyroelectricity can be designed by defect or microstructure engineering for piezo‐ and pyro‐catalyst, respectively. Moreover, highly piezoelectric and broadband (UV–Vis–NIR) light‐responsive ferroelectrics can be designed via defect engineering, giving rise to a new concept of photoferroelectrics for efficient photocatalysis, piezocatalysis, pyrocatalysis, and related cocatalysis. This article first summarizes the recent developments in ferroelectrics in terms of piezoelectricity, pyroelectricity, and photovoltaic effects based on defect and microstructure engineering. Then, the potential applications in energy generation (i.e., photovoltaic effect, H2 generation, and self‐powered multisource energy harvesting and signal sensing) and environmental protection (i.e., photo‐piezo‐pyro‐ cocatalytic dye degradation and CO2 reduction) are reviewed. Finally, the outlook and challenges are discussed. This article not only covers an overview of the state‐of‐art advances of ferroelectrics, but also prospects their applications in coping with energy crisis and environmental pollution.

Technical-Environmental Assessment of Energy Management Systems in Smart Ports

“…Especially, in the current situation, when the COVID-19 epidemic is complicated, the logistics port ensures the distance between people, thereby minimizing the possibility of cross-infection in the community (Kosiek et al, 2021). As the Covid-19 pandemic subsides, the world is immersed in the price storm of the energy crisis due to the sharp increase in oil prices (Dong et al, 2022). The shipping industry is being strongly impacted by this energy crisis.…”

Spatially Separated Redox Cocatalysts on Ferroelectric Nanoplates for Improved Piezophotocatalytic CO2 Reduction and H2O Oxidation

“…Ferroelectrics with the intrinsic nature of spontaneous polarization are a class of intriguing piezoelectrics that exhibit larger piezoelectric coefficients and thus higher piezocatalytic activities . More importantly, when ferroelectrics are light-excited, spontaneous polarization-induced internal electric field (IEF) provides a driving force to separate photocreated electrons and holes toward opposite sides. − As such, photoelectrons and holes accumulated at two opposite ends (one is positively charged and another one is negatively charged) enable the formation of spatially separated reduction and oxidation cocatalysts suitable for piezocatalysis and piezophotocatalysis via selective photoreduction and oxidation of metal salts on positive and negative domains, respectively. − Inspired by this, in this work, we demonstrate the selective photodeposition of spatially separated redox cocatalysts on oppositely poled facets of ferroelectrics for significantly enhanced piezophotocatalytic activity in overall CO 2 reduction and H 2 O oxidation. With PbTiO 3 nanoplates, which can be excited under both stress and light, as a model ferroelectric, it is found that the synergistic interplay of the spatially separated AuCu reduction cocatalyst and the MnO x oxidation cocatalyst contributes to the highest charge separation efficiency and optimal surface reactivity, thus producing the most greatly enhanced piezocatalytic, photocatalytic, and piezophotocatalytic performance in CO and O 2 production as compared with sole AuCu, MnO x , and randomly deposited AuCu/MnO x cocatalysts.…”

Morphotropic Phase Boundary-Assisted Lead-Free BaTiO3/PDMS Composite-Based Hybrid Energy Harvester: A Portable Power Source for Wireless Power Transmission

“…To date, various approaches (doping, , defect engineering, , etc., for ceramic materials and ceramic filler inclusion, − electrospinning, , etc., for polymer materials) have been utilized to amplify the output properties of PEH. On the other hand, for TEH, output power density, which is a measure of its superiority, mainly depends on the dielectric constant and surface charge density of the triboelectric layers .…”