Investigation of the Effect of Additives on the Microstructure, Magnetic, an‎d Photocatalytic Properties of Copper Ferrite Nanoparticles

10/19/2026 12:00:00 AM

Nowadays, considering the large volume of industrial wastewater containing various pollutants, developing an‎d implementing effective strategies for their treatment an‎d pollution reduction has become a matter of great importance. Among these strategies, the use of photocatalysts has emerged as an efficient an‎d modern approach for the degradation of dye molecules an‎d organic contaminants present in wastewater. In the present study, copper ferrite (CuFe₂O₄) was employed as a photocatalyst for the degradation of methylene blue dye. To this end, pure copper ferrite was synthesized via a bottom-up combustion route using copper nitrate (Cu(NO₃)₂•3H₂O) an‎d iron nitrate (Fe(NO₃)₃•9H₂O) as precursors, with glycine an‎d urea acting as fuel components. Subsequently, the ferrite samples were doped with specific amounts of bismuth (Bi), erbium (Er), an‎d nickel (Ni). The synthesized samples were characterized through X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), an‎d diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). The photocatalytic performance was eva‎luated by monitoring the degradation of methylene blue (MB) under visible light irradiation. The results revealed that the sample synthesized with a fuel mixture containing 75% glycine an‎d 25% urea, at an oxidizer-to-fuel ratio of 1.5 an‎d calcined at 800 °C for 3 hours, exhibited the highest saturation magnetization (22.56 emu/g) an‎d the lowest impurity level in its XRD pattern—thus, it was selec‎ted as the base sample for subsequent doping experiments. Moreover, the sample doped with 50% nickel demonstrated a more uniform microstructure an‎d a single-phase XRD pattern compared to the other doped compositions. However, no detectable photocatalytic activity (dye degradation) was observed in any of the samples.

نانوذرات , فريت مس , متيلن بلو , فوتوكاتاليست , دوپ كردن , خواص مغناطيسي

Copper Ferrite , Nanoparticles , Photocatalyst , Methylene Blue (MB) , Doping , Magnetic Properties

Mahya Ghahraman

Dr. Seyyed Mohammad Mirkazemi