Kinetic growth of Bi and Sc co-substitution on physical and photocatalytic properties of rare-earth orthoferrite NdFeO3 nanoparticles synthesized by the sol–gel method

Abstract

The \({\text{Nd}}_{1-x}{\text{Bi}}_{x}{\text{Fe}}_{0.7}{\text{Sc}}_{0.3}{\text{O}}_{3}(x=0.1- 0.4)\) compounds were successfully synthesized using a sol–gel method. X-ray diffraction analysis revealed an average crystallite size of approximately 104 nm with a strain of 0.276 for the optimized specimen (x = 0.3) sample. Raman spectroscopy further elucidated internal structural distortions arising from fluctuations in bond distances and angles. Magnetic properties were investigated using a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), showing promising results with magnetic moments (M_sat) upto 5.9351 emu/g, remanent magnetization (Mr) of 5.2545 emu/g and coercivity (Hc) reaching 145.21 T for the \({\text{Nd}}_{1-x}{\text{Bi}}_{x}{\text{Fe}}_{0.7}{\text{Sc}}_{0.3}{\text{O}}_{3}(x=0.1- 0.4)\) samples. Reflectance differential spectroscopy was employed to determine bandgap energies (E_g) for \({\text{Nd}}_{1-x}{\text{Bi}}_{x}{\text{Fe}}_{0.7}{\text{Sc}}_{0.3}{\text{O}}_{3}(x=0.1- 0.4)\) are 1.94 eV, 1.99 eV, 2.09 eV, 2.12 eV and 2.05 eV, respectively. The photocatalytic activity of these materials was assessed, with the \({\text{Nd}}_{1-x}{\text{Bi}}_{x}{\text{Fe}}_{0.7}{\text{Sc}}_{0.3}{\text{O}}_{3}(x=0.1- 0.4)\left(x=0.3\right)\) samples demonstrating the most effective performance in photocatalytic applications.