Manganese doped copper ferrite nanoparticles: A promising approach for organic dye elimination under light irradiation

Abstract

The present perspective illustrates the synthesized of Mn-doped copper ferrite NPs through the sol–gel approach. Various spectroscopic as well as analytical methods, including UV–Vis, FT-IR, XRD, SEM, and EDX were employed, and confirmed the formation of nano sized particles. FT-IR analysis confirms the presence of characteristics functional group particularly M−O (M = Fe, Mn, Cu). The XRD pattern revealed crystalline size of copper ferrite (CuFe2O4) nanoparticles measured as 58.22 nm. But, upon the introduction of manganese (Mn) in copper ferrite, a notable reduction in crystal size was observed, and found as 14.57 nm and 18.90 nm for MnFe2O4 and Cu0.5Mn0.5Fe2O4, respectively. Apart from this, UV–Vis spectroscopy analysis unveils a reduced band gap of 1.62 eV and 1.34 eV for MnFeO4 and Cu0.5Mn0.5Fe2O4, respectively that were comparatively lower than that copper ferrite (2.05 eV). The photolytic performance of copper ferrite (CuFe2O4) showed up to 55 % degradation of Congo red (CR) dye under UV illumination. However, annexation of Mn into the copper ferrite structure attributed 91 % and 79.1 % degradation of CR by MnFeO4 and Cu0.5Fe1.5Mn0.5O4, respectively. The kinetic investigation supported pseudo second order kinetic model, and the optimum photocatalytic degradation was achieved as concentration (20 ppm), pH (3), catalyst dosage (20 mg), and contact time (100 min) for the current study. From this study, it can be ascertain that the photo catalysts are more effective for the degradation of Congo red.