Bi₂O₃ nanoparticles: phytogenic synthesis, effect of calcination on physico-chemical characteristics and photocatalytic activity

ABSTRACT

The present work reported the bioinspired synthesis of Bi₂O₃ nanoparticles (NPs) using Ziziphus mauritiana leaves aqueous extract at four annealing temperatures (300, 400, 500, and 600C°) and examined annealing temperatures effect of on various physicochemical characteristics and photocatalytic activities of NPs. The XRD and Raman results reveal the existence of α and β polymorphs of Bi₂O₃ in all samples but with increase of calcination temperature the extent of α-phase, particle size, and crystallinity were increased while band gap value decreased. The BET results confirmed the mesoporous structure of all samples. Further, decolorization experiments conducted with crystal violet (CV) dye showed an observable effect of annealing temperature on the adsorption and photocatalytic efficacy of the prepared samples, and the utmost (99.88 %) removal of CV dye was computed with the Bi₂O₃ nanoparticles calcined at 300^oC (B-300). The main active species involved in the photo-mineralization of dye was h⁺ followed by •OH..

KEYWORDS:

• Bi₂O₃
• ziziphus mauritiana
• calcination temperature
• photocatalytic efficiency
• crystal violet dye

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, for providing infrastructural support. The technical assistance for this study was provided by MNIT, Jaipur Campus, and CAF, Manipal University, Jaipur.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they do not have any conflict of interests among them.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14328917.2023.2258469