Comparative study on photocatalytic efficiency of Mg doped CuFeO2 versus TiO2 doped CuFeO2 delafossite based on their application for the removal of tartrazine yellow dye

The present work highlights the comparative analysis between Mg doped CuFeO₂ (named as Mg-CFO) and TiO₂/CuFeO₂ composite (named as TiO₂-CFO) for the photodegradation of TZ dye in aqueous solution. Physicochemical tests like XRD, FTIR, FESEM, EDX was done for both the composites. The pH_pzc values of Mg-CFO and TiO₂-CFO were determined to be 9.34 and 9.0 respectively for which both photocatalysts gave good removal efficiency of anionic TZ in an acidic or lower pH region. Mg-CFO degraded 87 ​% of 20 ​mg ​L⁻¹ of TZ in 100 ​mL of solution at 50 ​mg dosage, under pH∼2, at 130 ​rpm and 30 ​°C temperature showing a rate constant of 0.00602 min⁻¹ and TiO₂-CFO degraded 91 ​% of TZ dye under the same conditions showing a rate constant of 0.00637 min⁻¹. The quenching test showed that both photocatalysts had generated O₂^°- radicals as the primary species and OH^° as the secondary species. In general, TiO₂-CFO composite was proved to be a comparatively better photocatalyst than Mg-CFO sample.