Manganese Substituted Zinc Ferrite Nanostructures for Photocatalytic Dye Degradation

Abstract

The increasing concerns over water pollution and the need for sustainable environmental remediation have driven intensive research into advanced photocatalysts for wastewater treatment. However, traditional photocatalysts often suffer from limited light absorption and rapid charge carrier recombination, reducing their practical efficiency. Manganese-substituted zinc ferrite nanoparticles offer a promising solution by integrating the magnetic and semiconducting properties of ferrites with enhanced visible-light responsiveness through elemental substitution. This study focuses on the optimization of zinc ferrite and manganese-substituted zinc ferrite nanoparticles for efficient photocatalytic degradation of dyes under visible light. The nanoparticles were synthesized using a combustion method by varying the glycine-to-nitrate (G/N) ratio to fine-tune their physicochemical properties. Among all compositions, fuel-lean ZnFeand#8322;Oand#8324; (Z1) exhibited the highest activity due to its larger surface area and suitable band gap. The optimized G/N ratio was further applied to synthesize MnxZn1-xFe2O4 (x = 0 1), where manganese substitution enhanced visible-light absorption and reduced the band gap. Among these, MZ4 (x = 0.8) achieved 90.9% degradation of methylene blue, 90% of rhodamine B, and 88.09% of chloramine T in 240 minutes. Scavenger studies confirmed hydroxyl radicals as the dominant reactive species. This research highlights the potential of ferrite-based nanomaterials for sustainable and efficient wastewater treatment. newline