Reaping the benefits of ferroelectricity in selectively precipitated lithium niobate microcrystals in silica matrix for photocatalysis

摘要

Microcrystals of LiNbO_3 (size ～200nm) can be selectively precipitated in a glass matrix which can assist in the photocatalytic activity through ferroelectricity. Glass with the composition 30SiO_2-35Li_2CO_3-35Nb_2O_5 was utilized for the process. A remarkably high Estriol (E3) degradation rate of 232.54 min~(-1)m~(-2) was obtained. The degradation was monitored using fluorescence spectroscopy with a detection limit in nanomolar (nM) range. From the fitting of fluorescence intensity versus time, it was observed that degradation of estriol follows a pseudo first-order reaction kinetics. The results indicate that LiNbO_3 based glass-ceramics have a great potential to be employed as a well embedded photocatalyst.