BiFeO3-Black TiO2 Composite as a Visible Light Active Photocatalyst for the Degradation of Methylene Blue

Pravallika Banoth; Chinna Kandula; Praveen Kumar Lavudya; Saidulu Akaram; Luis De Los Santos Valladares; RajaniKanth Ammanabrolu; Ghanashyam Krishna Mamidipudi; Pratap Kollu

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c00553

BiFeO₃-Black TiO₂ Composite as a Visible Light Active Photocatalyst for the Degradation of Methylene Blue

ACS Omega. 2023 May 15;8(21):18653-18662. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c00553. eCollection 2023 May 30.

Authors

Pravallika Banoth¹, Chinna Kandula¹, Praveen Kumar Lavudya¹, Saidulu Akaram², Luis De Los Santos Valladares^{3

4}, RajaniKanth Ammanabrolu¹, Ghanashyam Krishna Mamidipudi^{1

2}, Pratap Kollu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Prof. C. R. Rao Road, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Telangana 500046, India.
² CASEST, School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Prof C R Rao Road, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Telangana 500046, India.
³ Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge, J. J. Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.
⁴ Laboratorio de Cerámicos y Nanomateriales, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima 14-0149, Peru.

Abstract

The application of a novel BiFeO₃ (BFO)-black TiO₂ (BTO) composite (called BFOT) as a photocatalyst for the degradation of methylene blue is reported. The p-n heterojunction photocatalyst was synthesized for the first time through microwave-assisted co-precipitation synthesis to change the molar ratio of BTO in BiFeO₃ to increase the photocatalytic efficiency of the BiFeO₃ photocatalyst. The UV-visible properties of p-n heterostructures showed excellent absorption of visible light and reduced electron-hole recombination properties compared to the pure-phase BFO. Photocatalytic studies on BFOT10, BFOT20, and BFOT30 have shown that they decompose methylene blue (MB) in sunlight better than pure-phase BFO in 70 min. The BFOT30 photocatalyst was the most effective at reducing MB when exposed to visible light (97%). Magnetic studies have shown that BTO is diamagnetic, and the BFOT10 photocatalyst exhibits a very weak antiferromagnetic behavior, whereas BFOT20 and BFO30 show diamagnetic behavior. This study confirms that the catalyst has poor stability and weak magnetic recovery properties due to the non-magnetic phase BTO in the BFO.