ISSN: 2321-8371
Received 05 November 2015
Received in revised form 10
November 2015
Accepted 18 November
2015
Available online
20 November 2015
Sanchit Jain1, Rajan Hari Krishna1*, Chikkadasappa Shivakumara2, Madhu Gattumane Motappa3, Bhangi Mutta Nagabhushana1
1Department of Chemistry, M. S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore 560 054, India.
2Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.
3Department of Chemical Engineering, M. S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore 560 054, India.
*Corresponding author : rhk.chem@gmail.com
ABSTRACT: Metal ferrites are known to have excellent catalytic and antibacterial property. Synthesis of nano-ferrites is very significant in the development of novel functional materials for ecological and biological applications. We have synthesized biologically important BiFeO3 and BiFe0.95Ti0.05O3 through low temperature initiated solution combustion syntheses using urea as fuel. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to examine the microstructure and morphology of the samples. X-ray peak broadening analysis showed that the crystallite sizes of the combustion derived products are in the range 25-30 nm. A comparative study on catalytic activities of the undoped and doped BiFeO3 was carried out taking Malachite green (MG) as model pollutant. Catalysis efficiencies of the catalysts were tested under UV and visible light irradiation. The BiFe0.95Ti0.05O3 sample exhibit better photocatalytic activity than undoped BiFeO3. Further, the catalytic efficiency under visible light irradiation is found to be lesser than UV-light irradiation. The optimum catalyst dose was found to be 20 mg/L for 90% degradation of the dye, which is much lower than the reported cataysts for MG degradation.