Magnetically retrievable nanoscale nickel ferrites: An active photocatalyst for toxic dye removal applications

Abstract

Nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4) nanoparticles were synthesized through the sol-gel auto-combustion method using urea and glycine as mixed fuel. The prepared nanoparticles were investigated for their structural, optical, and magnetic characterizations. Rietveld refined X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns revealed the development of single-phase cubic spinel. The crystallite size was calculated by using Modified Scherrer's method and the W-H plot was found in the order of 26.6 nm and 25.4 respectively which are nearly the same. The infrared spectrum showed the typical characteristic absorption bands in the range of 400 cm-1 to 600 cm-1 belonging to cubic spinel structure. Scanning electron microscopy images showed the spherical nature of the nanoparticles along with agglomeration to some extent. As per the optical study, the prepared nanoparticles have an optical bandgap of 2.59 eV. The magnetic properties were studied through the M − H hysteresis curve showing superparamagnetic nature, the value of saturation magnetization (Ms), coercivity (Hc) was observed 46.20 emu/gm, and 383.2 Oe respectively. The photocatalytic activity of nickel ferrite was studied based on the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye as a model compound, where the result showed that prepared nanoparticles possessed a good photocatalytic activity against dye degradation. Up to four times catalyst exhibits nearly the same reutilization.