Executive Summary : | The recent world-wide boom in industrial and agricultural sectors have caused a global energy crisis along with raging environmental pollution. In particular, effluents from textile, metallurgical, electroplating, pigment and leather industries contain contamination of heavy metal such as Cr(VI) which is highly concerning for human health and other living beings due their permeability and bio-transformation properties. Hence, removal of Cr(VI) from industrial waste water have garnered worldwide researchers’ attention. As a result, a number of technologies such as adsorption, photocatalytic, membrane, ion exchange etc. have been emerged as potential approaches to remove the Cr(VI) from aquatic systems. Among these, catalytic and photocatalytic reduction of hexavalent chromium is highly promising approach due to its cost effectiveness and no hazardous chemicals production. However, for practical applications, photocatalytic reactions are severely affected by the suspended matter in waste- water and unavailability of sunlight at night. Hence, development of efficient catalytic technology exhibiting round-o-clock performance with uninterrupted manner is the need of the hour. As a strong alternative to photocatalysis, in recent years, piezocatalysis based advanced oxidation process has come up with enormous potential and multiple advantages. Piezocatalysts are blessed with round-o-clock reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation capability under simple mechanical stimuli present in our environment. Piezoelectric materials are the heart of Piezocatalysis phenomenon where the vibrational energy induced built-in field facilitates the charge carriers’ separation and surface electrochemical reactions leading to toxic degradation. Specifically, two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) materials such as MoS2, WS2, and WSe2 etc. are of great interest due to their appealing piezoelectric properties viz. easy deformation and high strain withstanding capability. Being impressed by the abovementioned characteristics, in the current project we propose to develop TMD based piezocatalytic filter for efficient removal of Cr(VI) from aquas solution. Piezocatalytic filter will be designed by growing nanostructured few layer TMDs on carbon fiber fabric (CFF). Being activated by the vibrational energy present in the natural flow stream of contaminant solution, the proposed filter is expected to exhibit piezocatalytic ROS generation due to favoured band alignment between the energy bands of TMD and redox potential for generating hydroxyl and superoxide radicals. In the first part of the project, efforts will be given in synthesizing high quality TMD films on CFF (TMD@CFF) followed by their suitable characterization. After successful realization of TMD@CFF, piezocatalytic ROS generation and Cr(VI) removal activity will be extensively probed through piezo-electrochemical measurements for sustainable Cr(VI) removal performance. |