Synthesis of high performance La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 nano manganite for removal of Rhodamine B under visible light irradiation

Magnetite metals with mixed valence, have high physical, chemical, magnetic and transport properties due to the presence of synthetic Mn4+ and Mn3+ ions in their crystalline structure. In the present study, doped lanthanum manganite (La0.7Ca0.3MnO3) was prepared by hydrothermal method. The as prepared powder was calcined based on the results of the thermal gravimetric analysis characterization (TGA). The results of XRD and FTIR analyses indicate that the compound is composed of single-phase structure without impurity and nanorod morphology with a mean length of 126.8 nm. The La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 composition has a band gap of 1.83 eV that indicating its usability as a photocatalyst in the visible light region.
The Rhodamine B cationic (RhB) was used as a model of wastewater to study the photocatalytic activity of La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 composition under visible light irradiation. The results of the removal of RhB by the heterogeneous photocatalytic oxidation process show that, over a period of 90 minutes, more than 80% of rhodamine is eliminated, and the overall reaction rate is first order and is equivalent to 0.020 min-1.