Piezocatalysis is a novel method that can be applied for degradation of organic pollutants in wastewater. In this paper, ferroelectric nanowires of antimony sulfoiodide (SbSI) have been fabricated using a sonochemical method. Methyl orange (MO) was chosen as a typical pollutant, as it is widely used as a dye in industry. An aqueous solution of MO at a concentration of 30 mg/L containing SbSI nanowires (6 g/L) was subjected to ultrasonic vibration. High degradation efficiency of 99.5% was achieved after an extremely short period of ultrasonic irradiation (40 s). The large reaction rate constant of 0.126(8) s-1 was determined for piezocatalytic MO decomposition. This rate constant is two orders of magnitude larger than values of reaction rate constants reported in the literature for the most efficient piezocatalysts. These promising experimental results have proved a great potential of SbSI nanowires for their application in environmental purification and renewable energy conversion.
Keywords: antimony sulfoiodide (SbSI); methyl orange; nanowires; ultrasound-assisted piezocatalysis; water purification.