Piezo - Photocatalytic Performance of Fe- Doped BaTiO3 Compounds

Abstract

Barium titanate (BaTiO3) is a feasible photocatalytic semiconductor. This has been demonstrated in both experimental and computational studies on the material. To enhance its photocatalytic performance under visible light, this study investigated the effect of introducing iron (Fe) dopant into its structure. The undoped and Fe-doped BaTiO3 films were synthesized and deposited on glass substrate using the spin coating technique and its photocatalytic activity was evaluated through photodegradation of methyl blue aqueous solution. The bandgap of the synthesized BaTiO3 reduced from 3.26 eV to 1.59 eV for the undoped and the 0.5%wt Fe doped samples, respectively. Further analysis revealed that 0.5%wt Fe had the best photocatalytic performance with a photo-degradation constant of [[EQUATION]]. The effect of Fe doping on the structural and electronic properties of BaTiO3 was further investigated by employing the Density Functional Theory. The electronic structures showed that Fe creates some defect states in the energy band, which forms weak coordinate covalent bond that greatly reduces the bandgaps of the doped materials. These results demonstrate the potential of employing Fe-doped BaTiO3 as a visible light photocatalytic material.