Highly efficient nanostructured CoFe2O4 thin film electrodes for electrochemical degradation of rhodamine B

In this work, we report the application of highly efficient electrodeposited cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) thin films in electrochemical degradation of rhodamine B. XRD, FTIR and Raman spectroscopic studies confirmed the formation of single phase CoFe2O4. SEM analysis revealed a very fine nanorods dispersed uniformly with average size around 30 nm. UV-Vis spectrophotometry emphasized that the optical band gap value is 1.6 eV. Moreover, the elaborated CoFe2O4 thin films showed a good efficiency for the electrochemical degradation of an aqueous solution of rhodamine B (RhB) attaining 99% during the first 3 min of reaction time. The trapping experiments revealed that the hydroxyl radicals were the main active species leading to the removal of RhB initial concentration of 10 mg/L in a very short time. Practitioner points A simple electrodeposition technique was used to fabricate CoFe2O4 thin. XRD and FTIR studies revealed the formation of pure cubic spinel phase. Nano-rod like morphology has been successfully synthesized. The rhodamine B aqueous solution has been completely decolorized using the obtained CoFe2O4 thin films.