Fundamentals, advances and perspectives of piezocatalysis: A marriage of solid-state physics and catalytic chemistry

Piezocatalysis, an evolving catalytic technology built on the piezoelectric properties of catalysts, breaks down the barrier between mechanical energy and chemical energy. The potential difference that arises from the mechanical deformation of a piezoelectric material is commonly termed ‘piezopotential’. Piezopotential has been demonstrated to facilitate the manipulation of band structure and/or charge carrier separation. Despite significant efforts to design materials and understand the mechanism of piezoelectrically enhanced chemistry through semiconductor physics, there remains an opportunity to review the relationships between catalytic performance and piezo/ferroelectric properties. Herein, we provide a…