Investigating the structural and magnetic properties of Fe3Se4 nanoparticles and it's photocatalytic application

This study explores the potential of synthesized Fe3Se4 nanoparticles by solid-state reaction method and it's photocatalytic application. The structural parameters validated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) demonstrate a monoclinic structure. The particle size of the prepared material was estimated at approximately 95 nm, as observed by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and it's composition was verified by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Strong Raman modes were observed at 225 cm−1 which is responsible for lattice vibration in Fe3Se4. Both Fe2+ and Fe3+ oxidation states were present in Fe3Se4, as characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). From the thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) curves, the Fe3Se4 was confirmed to be stable up to 295 °C. vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) tests revealed that the coercivity was 151 Oe at ambient temperature and increased 20 times to 2425 Oe at 15 K. Tauc's plot indicated an optical band gap value of 1.12 eV. Fe3Se4 nanoparticles achieved an 80.79 % dye degradation efficiency and exhibited photocatalytic activity against methylene blue dye. In photocatalysis, the apparent pseudo-first-order k1 and pseudo-second-order k2 rate constants are 0.018 min−1 and 0.058 min−1.