The treatment of wastewater before discharging into water reservoirs is unavoidable for sustainability. Among different wastewater treatment methods, the photocatalytic technique is an energy-efficient method and is also environmentally safe. Visible light-active photocatalysts (VLAP) are preferred for the establishment of solar-energy-based photocatalytic wastewater treatment. Magnetic-VLAP provides the additional and desirable feature of recoverability of the catalyst. Aluminium Ferrite (AlFeO3) is a perovskite-based magnetic-VLAP and its performance is tested for the degradation of textile dye pollutants: Rhodamine B (RhB), Methyl orange (MO). AlFeO3 efficiently degrades 99% of RhB in 180 mins and 94% of MO in 270 mins at the static condition, under visible-light illumination. It also exhibits UV photoactivity. The negative surface potential of AlFeO3 shows better degradation of cationic dye than anionic. The degradation rate is increased by 1.5 times when air is bubbled. The catalyst is magnetically retrieved from the treated water and reused over 5 cycles with only ∼ 4% efficiency loss. The toxicity of AlFeO3 is tested for the first time, and results indicate that more than 90% of L929 fibroblast cells are viable even when incubated together for 24 hours. As a result, AlFeO3 is a UV-visible-light-driven, easy-to-recover, recyclable, and eco-friendly photocatalyst that has the potential for practical industrial use.

In order to improve the catalytic efficiency, AlFeO3 is synthesized with four different surfactants. The little-known relevance of surfactant usage in AlFeO3 synthesis and its characteristics for antibiotics (Sulfamethoxazole (SMZ) and Tetracycline (TC)) degradation is studied. The findings indicate that (1) the catalyst can completely (100%) degrade SMZ, and TC in 60 mins and the degradation pathway is proposed (2) despite the large size and low surface area, AlFeO3 performed well due to the surface potential of the catalyst.

Further, the efficiency of AlFeO3 is improved with Indium doping and nanocomposites with CuO. These materials will be tested for photoelectrochemical hydrogen production. The aluminum ferrite class of materials emerges as promising candidates for sunlight-driven removal of targeted pollutants in wastewater treatment.