Synthesis and Characterization of a Heterogeneous Ternary Nanocomposite Photocatalyst BiFeO3-Graphene-NaNbO3 for the Degradation of MB Dye Disrupting Pulmonary Organs

A maiden attempt to synthesize ternary nanocomposites of Bismuth Ferrite-Graphene-Sodium Niobate (BiFeO3-Graphene-NaNbO3) has been made by utilizing conventional solution method. Systematic increase in the loading concentrations of graphene on BiFeO3-NaNbO3 heterogeneous composites found to have influenced their structural parameters, optical properties, photocatalytic dye degradation and their dielectric properties and they were assessed from powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectral measurements, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), optical absorption spectra in UV–Visible-Near IR region, Photoluminescence (PL) studies, photocatalysis and dielectric analyses. As such, admixture of graphene concentration of 0.025 percent with BiFeO3-NaNbO3 composite powders capable of degrading the methylene blue (MB) dye upto a maximum efficiency of 92% within the time frame of 120 min. Strikingly, at the same graphene concentration of 0.025 percent, the synthesized ternary composite sample exhibits an increased dielectric constant value of ‘37′. A close parallelism between the dielectric behaviour and photocatalytic dye degradation properties could be predicted from this study. Further, among various loading concentrations of graphene with BiFeO3-NaNbO3, lower concentration of 0.025 percent of graphene has been found as the optimum one for the improved MB dye degradation characteristics of the ternary composites of BiFeO3-Graphene-NaNbO3 with enhanced suppression of carrier recombination. The other interesting results have been discussed in detail.