Cation Incorporation and Synergistic Effects on the Characteristics of Sulfur-Doped Manganese Ferrites S@Mn(Fe 2 O 4 ) Nanoparticles for Boosted Sunlight-Driven Photocatalysis.

In the present work, sulfur-doped manganese ferrites S@Mn(Fe 2 O 4 ) nanoparticles were prepared by using the sol-gel and citrate method. The concentration of sulfur varied from 1 to 7% by adding Na 2 S. The samples were characterized by performing Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Ultraviolet-Visible spectroscopy (UV-Visible). The synthesized sulfur-doped manganese ferrites were applied to evaluate the photocatalytic degradation of the dyes. Further, the degradation studies revealed that the nanoparticles successfully degraded the methylene blue dye by adding a 0.006 g dose under the sunlight. The sulfur-doped manganese ferrite nanoparticles containing 3% sulfur completely degraded the dye in 2 h and 15 min in aqueous medium. Thus, the ferrite nanoparticles were found to be promising photocatalyst materials and could be employed for the degradation of other dyes in the future.