Microwave-assisted synthesis of nanoparticulate perovskite LaFeO3 as a high active visible-light photocatalyst

Single phase perovskite LaFeO₃ nanoparticles are directly synthesized by a one-step microwave-assisted route without additional high temperature calcination process. The prepared sample is characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning microscope (FE-SEM), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) specific surface area measurement, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). XRD and SEM show that the prepared LaFeO₃ is single phase perovskite and sphere-like shape. The DRS result shows that the prepared LaFeO₃ has strong visible-light absorption and an optical absorption onset of 525 nm, corresponding to an optical band gap of 2.36 eV. The photocatalytic experiment demonstrates that LaFeO₃ is highly visible-light photocatalytic active for the degradation of methylene blue. It is suggested that the narrow band gap and the strong visible-light absorption are responsible for the high visible-light photocatalytic activity of the prepared LaFeO₃.