Facile Synthesis and Characterization of Fe0.5Mn0.5Co2O4/Fe2O3 as a Novel Nanocomposite for the Effective Photocatalytic Decomposition of Safranin Dye

In this study, the chemical pechini sol-gel method was used for the simple fabrication of Fe0.5Mn0.5Co2O4/Fe2O3 as a new nanocomposite at 400, 600, 800, and 1000 C-o. The fabricated products at 400, 600, 800, and 1000 C-o were encoded as E400, E600, E800, and E1000, respectively. The fabricated nanocomposites were identified using several devices such as XRD, N-2 adsorption/desorption analyzer, FT-IR, EDS, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectrophotometer, and field emission scanning electron microscopy. The average crystallite size of the E400, E600, E800, and E1000 products is 80.31, 123.25, 130.75, and 141.36 nm, respectively. The FE-SEM showed that the E400 sample consists of rods, spheres, and irregular forms with an average diameter of 337.50 nm. Also, the E600 and E800 products consist of spheres and irregular shapes with an average diameter of 446.96 and 854.52 nm, respectively. Besides, the E1000 product comprises of cubic, sphere, and irregular shapes with a mean diameter of 1019.88 nm. The synthesized nanocomposites were used for the efficient photocatalytic degradation of safranin dye. In the presence of H2O2, 0.1 g of the synthesized nanocomposites completely decompose 50 mL of about 25 mg/L of safranin dye at pH equals 8 in 25 min.

Automated summary

In this study, Fe0.5Mn0.5Co2O4/Fe2O3 nanocomposites were fabricated using the chemical pechini sol-gel method at different temperatures. The nanocomposites were characterized using various techniques, and their average crystallite size and morphology were determined. The synthesized nanocomposites showed efficient photocatalytic degradation of safranin dye in the presence of H2O2, decomposing it completely within 25 minutes.