Facile green synthesis of ytrium-doped BiFeO3 with highly efficient photocatalytic degradation towards methylene blue

Abstract

Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO 3) is considered as one of the most promising materials in the field of multiferroics with great potentials in photocatalysis due to their excellent properties of relatively small band gap, stable structures, and low cost. In this work, a facile green route was successfully used for the fabrication of high-purity yttriumdoped and undoped bismuth ferrite (BiFeO 3) nanoparticles. κ-carrageenan seaweed was used as a biotemplate for the construction of the material. The obtained products were characterized and the photocatalytic effect of doped and undoped BiFeO 3 were evaluated on the degradation of methylene blue (MB) under direct sunlight. The formed particles are in the range of 80-90 nm that exhibited morphology of rhombohedral perovskite structure as confirmed by FESEM and HRTEM analysis. Decreasing of band gap energy from 2.07 eV to 2.05 eV as the concentration of yttrium dopant increased significantly affected their photocatalytic behaviour. There was a remarkable improvement in the photocatalytic activity of 1% of yttrium-doped BiFeO 3 towards the decomposition of methylene blue (MB) under direct sunlight irradiation. This was attributed to the strong absorption of visible light and the effective separation of photoinduced e− and h + pair, as compared to the pristine BiFeO 3. In addition, the influence of operational parameters on the removal efficiency of MB, such as catalyst dosage and initial dye concentrations, was optimized as a function of time. The kinetics of the photocatalytic MB removal was later found to follow Langmuir Hinshelwood model.

Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) perovskite-based advanced nanomaterials with state-of-the-art photocatalytic performance in water clean-up

“…15. 185 Also, a significant effect of 1% dopant concentration in pure BFO is demonstrated with almost 100% efficiency in the first phase.…”

Effect of Gd and Ce Doped BiFeO3 for Photocatalytic Activity

“…In addition, the effects of Ce doping on the morphology and magnetic characteristics have been investigated [8][9][10]. It has been reported that the doping of rare-earth ions such as Gd and Ce onto BFO shows enhanced photocatalytic degradation of RhB [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. In this report BFO and Bi1−xGdxFe1−yCeyO3 (where x = 0.1 & y = 0.05, 0.1 and 0.15) samples were synthesized by sol-gel method.…”

Review—State of the Art of the Multifunctional Bismuth Ferrite: Synthesis Method and Applications

“…Thus, 1% yttrium doped BiFeO 3 has better degradation efficiency of 97.6% at this surface area. 74 The saturation magnetization of the material has been increased by dopants and co-dopants in the material. The increased saturation 19.…”