Structural and Multiple Applicational Studies of Alkaline Earth Metal Spinel (AB2O4) Ferrites

Abstract

The spinel ferrites MFe2O4 from alkaline earth metals (M = Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba) were identified as potential photocatalyst. The present work deals with the synthesis of mentioned ferrites by solution combustion synthesis using urea as fuel. X-ray pattern displays the formation of pure phase, whereas the functional groups were confirmed by FTIR studies. The UV-DRS spectra revealed that MgFe2O4 (2.3 eV) had an energy band gap that was optimal for visible light phototcatalytic degradation. The ferrites MgFe2O4, CaFe2O4, SrFe2O4 and BaFe2O4 displays excellent photocatalytic degradation performance for reactive blue 4 dye under visible light within 120 min resulted 93%, 84%, 92% and 79%, respectively. Compared to other synthesized ferrites SrFe2O4 shows remarkable specific capacitance with 288.7 × 10-3 F/g ascertains the super capacitor nature and also indicates better results to sense lead nitrate at very lower concentrations from cyclic voltammogram studies. The antibacterial activity against Bacillus and Pseudomonas (30 mg/mL) showed that CaFe2O4 was more effective than other synthesized ferrites.