The studies of advanced materials in environmental remediation and degradation of pollutants is rapidly advancing because of their wide varieties of applications. BiFeO 3 (BFO), a perovskite nanomaterial with a rhombohedral R3c space group, is currently receiving tremendous attention in photodegradation of dyes. The photocatalytic activity of BFO nanoparticle is a promising field of research in photocatalysis. BFO nanomaterial is a photocatalyst enhanced by doping because of its reduce bandgap energy (2.0-2.77 eV), multiferroic property, strong photoabsorption and crystal structure. The material has proven to be very useful for the degradation of dyes under visible light irradiation among other photocatalysts. Its exceptional nontoxicity, suitability, low cost and long term excellent stability makes it an efficient photocatalyst for the degradation of effluents from textile and pharmaceutical industries which ended-up in the environment and now a major concern of the modern world. This mini-review attempts to provide some detailed synthetic routes of BFO and BFO related nanomaterials and the notable achievements so far on the effect of doping the material. It also discusses the effect of crystallite size of the material and other photophysical properties and how they influence the photocatalytic process of model organic dye pollutants, to date.
Neocarya macrophylla belongs to the Chrysobalanaceae family and is extensively used in folk medicine as an antibacterial, antivenin, antiasthmatic, anticancer, analgesic and anti-inflammatory agent. This study was aimed at isolation and characterization of compounds from the stem bark of Neocarya macrophylla. Pulverized plant material was exhaustively extracted with methanol using maceration method and concentrated invacuo with the aid of rotary evaporator at 40 o C to afford a reddish brown crude methanol extract (ME). The methanol extract was successively partitioned into hexane, dichloromethane, ethylacetate, n-butanol and aqueous fractions. Stigmasterol was isolated from the hexane fraction and a catechin glycoside, Bis-(5,7-diacetyl-catechin-4'-α-rhamnopyranoside) was isolated from the ethylacetate soluble fraction using a combination of silica gel column, gel filtration (sephadex LH-20) and preparative thin layer chromatography. The structures of the compounds were established on the basis of chemical tests, spectroscopic analysis and by comparison with reference spectral data.
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