Ferrite (Fe) Doping in Strontium Titanate (SrTi1-xFexO₃) to Improve Photocatalytic Activity

This research investigated the Fe doping effects on the Strontium Titanate (SrTiO 3 ) structure to improve its photocatalytic activity. The so-called Fe-doped STO photocatalysts with a stoichiometry formula of SrTi 1-x Fe x O 3 (x = 0, 0.01, and 0.05) were successfully fabricated using the coprecipitation method. The XRD characterization confirmed the formation of STO, SrTi 0.99 Fe 0.01 O 3 , and SrTi 0.9 5 Fe 0. 05 O 3 photocatalysts and the shrinkage crystallite size due to increasing Fe content. The FTIR characterization supported the XRD results, where all samples revealed Sr-Ti-O bonds with no observed Fe-O bonds indicating the successful fabrication and doping. The photocatalytic activity was examined by the degradation of Methylene Blue (MB) dye under UV light for 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 irradiation times, and the absorbance was determined using a Spectrophotometer instrument. All samples have successfully degraded MB dye where the %degradation linearly increased with longer irradiation times. The results further exhibited that the SrTi 0.95 Fe 0.05 O 3 sample had the highest %degradation at 75.3% while SrTi 0.99 Fe 0.01 O 3 samples achieved the highest kinetic rate at 0.2557 min - 1 . All Fe-doped samples revealed better photocatalytic activity than the undoped STO, proving that Fe doping could improve the photocatalytic activity of SrTiO 3 .