Photocatalytic Activity of Ba-Doped BiFeO3 Nanoparticles

In this work, nanopowders of the Bi1 − xBaxFeO3 system (x = 0, 0.10, 0.20) were synthesized by the combustion method of nitrate-organic precursors. The effect of doping bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) with barium (Ba) ions on the morphology, crystal structure, and photocatalytic activity of the material was studied. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that all samples crystallize into a rhombohedrally distorted perovskite structure with the R3c space group. Doping with barium led to a significant decrease in the crystallite sizes, as well as to a distortion of the crystal lattice. In the case of 20% substitution, the formation of BaCO3 impurity was observed, which was also confirmed by the analysis of the Raman spectra. It was shown that the introduction of barium leads to the formation of a more porous texture and a significant increase in the specific surface area of the material. The original BiFeO3 demonstrated an extremely low efficiency of methylene blue decomposition relative to photolysis, while doping with barium led to a significant improvement in the photocatalytic characteristics of the material: in the case of 20% Ba substitution, the decomposition of methylene blue reached 99% in 1 h.