This paper presents
the rare earth doping effect on the structural,
optical, and magnetic properties of bilayered Ruddlesden–Popper
oxides Sr
2
La
0.5
R
0.5
FeMnO
7
(R = La, Nd, Sm, Gd, Dy). Moreover, we are reporting for the first
time a new rare earth-doped bilayered perovskite oxide series for
the highly toxic methylene blue dye degradation in wastewater under
visible light. Structural analysis of the PXRD data using the Rietveld
refinements confirms the formation of the phases in tetragonal symmetry
with the
I
4/
mmm
space group. The
unit cell lattice parameters (
a
&
c
) and the cell volume (
V
) decrease monotonically
from La- to Dy-doped samples owing to the decrease in the lanthanide
ionic radii. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis indicates
the existence of the Mn ions in the mixed valence state. The DRS study
shows that the energy band gap value decreases on moving from La to
Gd substitution; however, it further increases for the Dy-doped sample.
The magnetic measurements reveal that all the phases exhibit dominant
anti-ferromagnetic interactions with Neel temperature (
T
N
) observed at 150, 147, 138, 113, and 117 K for La-,
Nd-, Sm-, Gd-, and Dy-substituted phases, respectively. However, the
presence of an unsaturated hysteresis loop observed in the isothermal
magnetic field (
H
) vs magnetization (
M
) plot also indicates the existence of weak ferromagnetic interactions.
The investigation of the photocatalytic activity of the synthesized
samples was done by carrying out photo-oxidative degradation of methylene
blue (MB) dye pollutants. The results show that the photodegradation
enhances by doping with heavier rare earth ions with the exception
of the Dy-doped sample. The Gd-doped catalyst shows the maximum degradation
efficiency of 99.03% in 50 min under visible light irradiation. The
scavenging experiments confirmed that the
·
OH was the
main/dominant oxidizing agent involved in the degradation of the MB
dye.