Microwave-induced solid-state decomposition of the Bi[Fe(CN)6]·5H2O precursor: A novel route for the rapid and facile synthesis of pure and single-phase BiFeO3 nanopowder

Pure BiFeO3 nanopowders were synthesized through microwave-induced solid-state decomposition of Bi[Fe(CN)6]·5H2O precursor in the presence of CuO powder as strong microwave absorber within a very short reaction time of 6 min. The product was characterized by a variety of techniques such as TGA–DTA, XRD, FT-IR, Raman spectroscopy, SEM, TEM, EDX, UV–vis spectroscopy and magnetic measurement. The magnetic measurement confirms that the product shows a weak ferromagnetic order at room temperature, which may be ascribed to the size confinement effect. The DTA and DSC results confirm multiferroic nature of the prepared BiFeO3 nanopowder with Neel temperature at 371 °C and Curie temperature at 830 °C. The BiFeO3 prepared by this method could be an appropriate visible-light photocatalytic material due to a strong absorption band in the visible region. In comparison with other reported method, this method is simple, fast and energy efficient and resulted in smaller nanoparticles with an average size about 10 nm.