Accelerated perovskite discovery: screening new catalysts for photocatalytic methylene blue degradation

Abstract

The diversified use of metal oxides within several disciplines underlines their flexibility in various catalytic processes and innovations in materials science. Due to their tailored functionality, improved stability, and enhanced conductivity, multimetallic oxides offer a wider range of applications compared to single-metal counterparts. Among them, perovskites stand out, being a class suitable for various applications, including photocatalysis. One among them is the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB), a process increasingly recognized for its importance in environmental remediation and water purification. Herein, we present a simple, economical, and easily adaptable high-throughput experimental approach to synthesize and evaluate a wide array of citric acid-assisted perovskite compositions for photocatalytic degradation. Our high-throughput approach not only addresses the bottleneck of catalyst preparation but also expands the scope of photocatalysis research by incorporating computational screening of less-explored perovskite compositions. The obtained data will serve as a valuable reference for the development of next-generation catalysts, as we have drawn a correlation between material properties and their performance. Moreover, the synthetic methodology, if adopted, enables the synthesis of any kind of metal oxides for applications ranging from homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis to broader domains of materials science.