Smart Materials Laboratory

The project is aimed at solving several interrelated problems (environmental, materials science, health-saving), which, ultimately, will allow us to obtain an applied resource- and health-saving technology for the decomposition of a wide range of organic pollutants in real objects. At the same time, the main fundamental task is related to the development of the basics of the magnetically controlled piezophototron effect, which is a combination of piezo-, magneto- and photocatalytic activity. The main material science task of the study is the design of photocatalysts, the creation of a fundamentally new class of flexible, easily extractable thin-film organo-inorganic nanocomposites based on the functional analysis of piezoelectric polymer PVDF by iron-containing magnetic photocatalysts with different magnetic ordering (a-Fe2O3, Fe3O4, BiFeO3) by electric spinning. The essence of the claimed research consists in using the phenomenon of direct conversion of mechanical energy into chemical energy, the so-called piezoelectrochemical effect based on the piezoelectric properties of the proposed materials to solve the applied environmental and health-saving problem associated with the decomposition of a wide range of organic pollutants. In addition, the inclusion of magnetic nanoparticles in the structure of PVDF nanowires opens up the possibility of controlling the piezophotocatalysis process by both an electric field due to ferroelectric polarization and a magnetic field due to magnetically induced spin polarization.

The aim of the project is to develop a unique non-volatile technology for water purification from persistent organic pollutants using smart catalysts based on a piezoelectric polymer polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) modified by nanoparticles of a photocatalyst using clean environmental energy such as energy from water flow and solar.