Russian scientists in conjunction with colleagues from Italy have come up with a new way to synthesize bismuth barium for the processing of organic pollutants for wastewater treatment and obtaining hydrogen fuel. This is reported in a press release on the RHF website.
bismuth barium is an alternative to widely used photocatalytic substances, which, when irradiated with light, organic molecules are cleaved into simpler compounds that do not have toxic effects. Typically, the titanium oxide is used for this, but it functions only in the presence of ultraviolet, which makes it difficult to industrial applications.
The new photocatalyst is capable of splitting water and carbon dioxide, which makes it potentially useful to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and combating climate change on the planet. Researchers learned to synthesize bismuth barium in its pure form without carbonate impurities. To do this, they prepared a mixture of barium nitrate and bismuth oxide, crushed it and heat treatment. As a result, thin films on a quartz substrate were obtained.
The results of the analysis showed that Baryan Barium decomposes phenol faster than titanium oxide. As it turned out later, the photocatalytic activity of the substance is due to positively charged respondents (photo) and oxygen radicals.