Development of novel inorganic Mn⁵⁺-doped BiCa₂VO₆ vivid green pigments: its crystal structure and color properties

Novel vivid green inorganic pigments BiCa₂VO₆ (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.2) were synthesized through a conventional solid-state reaction method. The properties of pigments were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), UV–visible absorbance spectra, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The BiCa₂(V_1-xMn_x)O₆ (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.2) pigments prepared in this study exhibited orthorhombic structure with space group Ccm2₁ as main phase. The Mn⁵⁺ doped BiCa₂VO₆ pigments showed strong optical absorption in the yellow–red light regions due to the Mn⁵⁺ d–d transitions, which is the origin of the green color. Among these pigments, the BiCa₂V_0.97Mn_0.03O₆ showed the most vivid green color and the L*, a*, and b* values are 58.79, − 23.88, and 12.18, respectively.