Zinc‐Doped BiFeO₃Nanoparticles: Synthesis, Characterization and Photocatalytic Activity on Acid Red‐85 Dye

Abstract

Photocatalysis has been drawing significant research attention because of its extensive applications in fields such as environmental remediation and renewable energy. In this work, we design a series of BiFe1‐xZnxO3 (x=0, 0.025, 0.05, 0.075, and 0.1) photocatalysts to reveal the photocatalytic mechanism for model Acid Red‐85, a stable textile dye. The bandgap energy of zinc – doped BiFeO3 is ranging from 2.138 to 2.2 eV. We have shown that changing the Fe/Zn ratio by bandgap engineering effectively controls the reaction pathway. Specifically, BiFe0.925Zn0.075O3 (7.5BFZO) presented the best performance for photocatalytic activity (92 %). The magnetic behaviour improves for lower zinc doping concentrations (x=0.025 and 0.05) and declines for higher concentrations (x=0.075 and 0.10). The photocatalytic degradation of Acid Red‐85 dye followed pseudo first order kinetics, with the highest catalytic effect seen in BiFe0.925Zn0.075O3 with 92 % degradation after 2 hours of light exposure.