Critical review: Bismuth ferrite as an emerging visible light active nanostructured photocatalyst

Photocatalytic technology has got great attention in recent days because of increasing problems of energy crisis and environmental pollution. Many semiconductor photocatalyst has been investigated, among them BiFeO3 has got great attention due to its unique morphological structural and multiferroic properties. In this review, detailed discussion of crystal structure, electronic band structure, degradation mechanism, different factors affecting on degradation efficiencies of BiFeO3 has been included. The different fabrication techniques and possibilities of improvement photoactivity of BiFeO3 with different modification were also discussed. This review also gives a broad overview of BiFeO3 as visible light photocatalysts, summarizing the present state of research work and providing some useful understandings for their future progress. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.