Synthesis and investigation of structural, optical, and photocatalytic properties of BiFeO3/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites

This study have been developed BiFeO3/reduced graphene oxide (BFO/RGO) nanocomposites by introduction of RGO in the structure of BFO nanoparticles in a short term ultrasonic treatment. The X-ray diffraction pattern and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy analysis reveal that the BFO/RGO composites were successfully synthesized. UV-visible absorption show that the introduction of RGO can effectively reduce the recombination of photo-generated electron and hole pairs and the lower band gap energies were also identified for BFO/RGO composites as compared to 1.97 eV for BFO. The photocatalytic performance of BFO/RGO nanocomposites is stable and exhibit considerably higher photocatalytic ability over the pristine BFO for the degradation of methyl orange solution under visible light irradiation. The possible mechanism behind the superior photocatalytic performance of BFO/RGO nanocomposite has been critically discussed.