The effect of the ethylene glycol to metal nitrate molar ratio on the phase evolution, morphology and magnetic properties of single phase BiFeO3 nanoparticles

In this work, single phase BiFeO3 nanoparticles have been synthesized by thermal decomposition of a glyoxylate complex achieved by the redox reaction between ethylene glycol and nitrate anions. The effects of different molar ratios of ethylene glycol to metal nitrate anions on the phase evolution, morphology and magnetic properties were investigated by infrared spectroscopy, thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy and vibrating sample magnetometry methods. The single phase bismuth ferrite nanoparticles synthesized with the ethylene glycol to nitrate anions molar ratio of 5 showed the weak ferromagnetism behavior with saturation magnetization of 1.3 emu/g, due to the size confinement effect. Furthermore, the BiFeO3 nanoparticles were used for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) as a typical dye pollutant under direct sunlight irradiation.