Abstract
Herein, a microwave-assisted approach for the synthesis of manganese (II) (Mn2+)-doped bismuth ferrite (BMFO) nanoparticles is presented. Various techniques were used to examine the structure, morphology and electrical characteristics of the as-synthesized BMFO nanoparticles. X-ray diffraction and Raman analysis revealed a rhombohedral distorted perovskite structure with space group R3c. The crystallite size of BMFO was found to be 18.77nm. Scanning electron microscopy studies of the BMFO nanoparticles showed the highly agglomerated nature of the particles. The ultraviolet diffuse reflectance spectrum of BMFO revealed a bandgap of 1.56eV, which was smaller than the bandgap of pure bismuth ferrite (2.41eV). The methyl orange (MO) dye degradation behavior of the synthesized BMFO was examined for a dye sample solution in the presence of solar radiation. After 120min, irradiation resulted in 81.08% photodegradation of the MO dye. Kinetic studies demonstrated a pseudo-first-order rate mechanism for the photodegradation of the MO dye. The corresponding coefficient of determination R-2 and t(1/2) were 0.92864 and 63.0min, respectively. Finally, a methodology for the degradation of MO dye using BMFO is proposed.