Metal-doped perovskite BiFeO3/rGO nanocomposites towards the degradation of acetaminophen in aqueous phase using plasma-photocatalytic hybrid technology

Abstract In this work, various BiFeO3 perovskite photocatalysts on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) were synthesized using three different gel agents of ethylene glycol (E), citric acid (C), and a combination of citric acid-ethylene glycol (CE). The phsyico-chemical properties of photocatalysts were characterized by XRD, FTIR, FESEM, BET-BJH, UV–Vis DRS, and VSM analyses. The photocatalytic activity of photocatalysts was tested towards the degradation of aqueous acetaminophen (APAP) in a non-thermal plasma reactor at ambient conditions. The results confirm that the highest APAP degradation rate of 90% is obtained by using plasma-photocatalytic oxidation in the presence of BiFeO3/rGO-CE nanocomposite while plasma alone shows a low degradation rate of 30%. To further improve the activity of BiFeO3/rGO-CE, it was doped using different metals like Mn, Zn, La, and Ba. It was confirmed that the APAP degradation rate increases to 98.6% using La-doped BiFeO3/rGO. Characterization analyses confirmed this sample had small nanoparticles with an average diameter of 5–6 nm. The highest BET surface area of 31.79 m2/g and the highest pore volume of 7.31 m3/g was obtained as well. Moreover, the La-doped BiFeO3/rGO showed the highest saturation magnetization of 5.2 emu/g that facilitate the separation of spent catalyst from treated wastewater.