Synthesis and characterization of TiO2 doped cobalt ferrite nanoparticles via microwave method: Investigation of photocatalytic performance of congo red degradation dye

Microwave improved porous CoFe2O4 and TiO2 doped CoFe2O4 nanostructures were designed using L-threonine as a fuel in our current research work. The synthesized nanomaterials were characterised and investigated to determine the photocatalytic degradation of congo red dye on irradiation of visible light. The powder XRD pattern proved that the obtained crystallite size of CoFe2O4 is 44 nm and TiO2 doped CoFe2O4 is 25 nm. It has been observed that the crystalline size is much lower for TiO2 doped CoFe2O4 when compared to the CoFe2O4, which is due to the doping of titania. Furthermore, the SEM images of titania doped CoFe2O4 indicates that the smaller particles are dispersed with a high agglomeration, due to the interfacial surface tension between the titania and cobalt ferrite particles. DRS spectra proved the measured bandgap of the corresponding CoFe2O4 and TiO2 doped CoFe2O4 nanostructures are 3.01 and 2.88 eV. The microstructure and the dimension of the synthesized CoFe2O4 and TiO2 doped CoFe2O4 spinel ferrites nanostructures were explored by high resolution transmission electron microscope (HR-TEM). The association of photocatalytic properties of CoFe2O4 and TiO2 doped CoFe2O4 in a solitary particle is the projected advantage of the current work.