Synthesis of Nanocrystalline LaFeO<sub>3</sub> by Precipitation and its Visible-Light Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

The LaFeO3 nanoparticle was synthesized using Fe(NO3)3 and La(NO3)3 as starting materials by homogeneous precipitation method. The as-prepared LaFeO3 product was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). XRD and SEM demonstrate the successful synthesis of single phase perovskite LaFeO3 and with 60-80 nm particle size. It was found that the as-prepared LaFeO3 shows strong visible-light absorption with absorption onset of 532 nm, indicating a narrow optical band gap of 2.33 eV. Furthermore, the as-prepared LaFeO3 shows high visible-light photocatalytic activity for decomposition of methylene blue in comparison with the commercial Degussa P25.