Sol–gel assisted incremental substitution of Ni with Ba in barium ferrichromites and their photocatalytic activity

Abstract

Dye contamination of water has been getting worse in recent years, and this has major toxicological impacts on both the ecosystem and human health. Considering this perspective, we have synthesized the Ba1−xNixFeCrO4 (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 1.0) by incrementally substituting Ni with Ba using the sol–gel method. In the present work, we have used a unique and novel chemical procedure to synthesize ultra-fine, homogeneous, reproducible powders that overcome all the drawbacks of conventional methods using nitrate salts of the constituent metal ions in aqueous solutions. The synthesized materials were used as different physicochemical characterizations such as XRD, SEM, EDAX, and XPS. Furthermore, the resulting composites were evaluated for their photocatalytic study in degrading methyl orange dye under UV–Visible light illumination. Notably, NiFeCrO4 (x = 1.0) showed excellent photocatalytic performance, attributed to its relatively narrow band gap and favorable interface properties, which facilitate the absorption of a broader range of wavelengths.