Synthesis of La1-xGdxFe1-yCoyO3/r-GO nanocomposite with integrated features for the treatment of hazardous industrial effluents

Solar-light triggered semiconductive materials with a small bandgap, a low electron-hole pair recombination rate, and quicker charge carrier characteristics are very efficient catalysts for hazardous industrial effluent treatment. Herein, we adopted wet-chemical and ultra-sonication techniques to prepare binary metal (Gd & Co) doped Lanthanum ferrite (GCLFO) nanoparticles and their reduced-graphene (r-GO) based nanocomposite (GCLFO/r-GO) as an ideal photocatalyst. The binary metal doping and composite formation strategies were adopted primarily to facilitate the electronic excitation and accelerate the charge transport characteristics of the finally obtained photocatalyst. Prepared solid samples were characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, Fourier transform-infrared (FT-IR), current-voltage (I–V), BET (Brunauer, Emmett, and Teller), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. An improvement in the photo-degradation of Phenol Red (PR) dye by GCLFO/r-GO nanocomposite was observed. The increased photocatalytic activity of the GCLFO/r-GO nanocomposite is primarily a result of doping, nanotechnology, and composite formation strategies. These strategies tune the bandgap of the nanocomposite sample, increase its surface area, and decrease its electrical resistivity. Highly encouraging photocatalytic findings suggest that using multiple strategies to prepare an ideal photocatalytic material with integrated features is a very efficient approach.