Enhanced photocatalytic activity of tourmaline modified BiFeO3 nanoparticles by efficient charge transfer

The development of green and efficient photocatalytic materials for the industrial wastewater has become a current research focus. In this work, bare BiFeO3 (BFO) and tourmaline modified BFO composites were synthesized by the sol-gel method to investigate the photocatalytic degradation efficiency of the different content tourmaline modified BFO for methyl orange dyes. The SEM and elemental mapping images display that BFO nanoparticles are uniformly distributed on the surface of tourmaline. The increased photocurrent density and band gaps indicate that higher effective separation for photogenerated electron-hole pairs were obtained by introducing the tourmaline. The photocatalytic activities shows that T-BFO composite exhibits an obvious enhancement of methyl orange degradation ratio under visible light irradiation, which is higher than that of the bare BFO. Moreover, the electron transport mechanism of T-BFO composites were particularly investigated through active species trapping experiments. These results provide a new approach to develop the high performance of photocatalyst.

Automated summary

In this study, bare BiFeO3 and tourmaline modified BFO composites were synthesized, and it was found that the modified BFO showed enhanced degradation efficiency for methyl orange dyes under visible light irradiation.