Structural, magnetic and photocatalytic properties of Sr2+ doped BiFeO3 nanofibres fabricated by electrospinning

Sr2+ doped BiFeO3 (Bi1-xSrxFeO3, 0 ≤x ≤ 0.35) nanofibres were fabricated by a sol-gel based electrospinning method. The as-spun BiFeO3 (BFO) nanofibres consist of fine grained particles with high crystallinity. With Sr2+ doping, both the magnetic and photocatalytic properties of BFO are effectively improved. The best photocatalytic property for degradation of the methylene blue (MB) is obtained in Bi0.75Sr0.25FeO3 nanofibres due to their weakest photoluminescence (PL) intensity. Meanwhile, the photocatalytic property of Bi0.75Sr0.25FeO3 nanofibres is much higher than that of nanoparticles with the same constituent, which is attributed to the unique one-dimension fibrous structure benefiting the separation and decreased recombination of e-/h+ pairs. This work proposes an effective approach for the degradation of organic pollutes.