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

Microcrystals of LiNbO3 (size ∼200 nm) can be selectively precipitated in a glass matrix which can assist in the photocatalytic activity through ferroelectricity. Glass with the composition 30SiO2-35Li2CO3-35Nb2O5 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 LiNbO3 based glass-ceramics have a great potential to be employed as a well embedded photocatalyst.