摘要
This work, we achieved the first-ever demonstration in the polydimethylsiloxane embedded with the abundant single-layer tungsten disulfide (WS 2 ) nanoflowers (PDMS/WS 2 NFs) for the degradation of organic dye (Rhodamine B, RB) in dark environment. The degradation ratio of the PDMS/WS 2 NFs brick reached ~ 99% and achieved ten cycling test where each cycle took 90 min for the decomposition of the dye molecules. The rate constant of the PDMS embedded WS 2 NFs was 0.13 (ppms −1 ), with the highest degradation rate of ~ 6624 ppm L mole −1 s −1 . This is the fastest degradation rate using the PDMS embedded with the abundant single-layer WS 2 NFs. We further demonstrated the antibacterial properties of single and few-layers WS 2 NFs reaches more than 99.99% to against the Escherichia coli (E. coli) under ultrasonic condition. The piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) and tunneling atomic force microscopy (TUNA) unveil the dramatically piezopotential of the WS 2 NFs. The piezopotential was created around the WS 2 NFs to generate the reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the water mediator. The electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra further evidenced that the generation of reactive oxygen species. O 2 - and hydroxyl (OH ∙ ) radicals under the mechanical strain, were responsible for decomposing the Rh-B dye molecules and the E. coli bacteria in the dark. The PDMS/MoS 2 NFs brick was highly repeatable for efficient decomposition of the organic dyes, which further evidenced that by utilizing piezo-catalytic technologies in the absence of light could be an effective solution for converting mechanical energy into usable chemical energy for the degradation of pollutants.