Nitrogen Incorporated Photoactive Brownmillerite Ca₂Fe₂O₅ for Energy and Environmental Applications

Ca₂Fe₂O₅ (CFO) is a potentially viable material for alternate energy applications. Incorporation of nitrogen in Ca₂Fe₂O₅ (CFO-N) lattice modifies the optical and electronic properties to its advantage. Here, the electronic band structures of CFO and CFO-N were probed using Ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) and UV-Visible spectroscopy. The optical bandgap of CFO reduces from 2.21 eV to 2.07 eV on post N incorporation along with a clear shift in the valence band of CFO indicating the occupation of N 2p levels over O 2p in the valence band. Similar effect is also observed in the bandgap of CFO, which is tailored upto 1.43 eV by N⁺ ion implantation. The theoretical bandgaps of CFO and CFO-N were also determined by using the Density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The photoactivity of these CFO and CFO-N was explored by organic effluent degradation under sunlight. The feasibility of utilizing CFO and CFO-N samples for energy storage applications were also investigated through specific capacitance measurements. The specific capacitance of CFO is found to increase to 224.67 Fg⁻¹ upon N incorporation. CFO-N is thus found to exhibit superior optical, catalytic as well as supercapacitor properties over CFO expanding the scope of brownmillerites in energy and environmental applications.