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Improvement of catalytic activity and mechanistic analysis of transition metal ion doped nanoCeO2 by aqueous Rhodamine B degradation

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Abstract

We compared the enhancement of photoactivity of transition metal ion (1 mol% Fe, Cu, Mn, and Zn) doped CeO2 nanocatalysts, and examined the effects of oxygen vacancies and the valence of the doped ions. The nanocatalysts were synthesized using a coprecipitation method and were characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller isotherm methods and Raman spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activities of these catalysts were tested using aqueous Rhodamine B (RhB) degradation under UV irradiation. The spherical CeO2 nanocatalysts had a mesoporous structure and ∼15 nm average particle size. The catalytic activity was closely related to the oxygen vacancies and the valence of the doped ions. An increase in oxygen vacancies of doped CeO2 decreased the photocatalytic activity. The photocatalytic activities of the catalysts decreased in the order: 1 mol% Fe > Cu > Mn > Zn > undoped CeO2. The 1 mol% Fe doped CeO2 degraded ∼92.6% of the RhB after 3 h of irradiation, and the degradation obeyed pseudo-first-order kinetics. Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry indicated that the photodegradation of RhB was a stepwise oxidation process. Under continuous oxidation, over a long reaction time, the RhB was completely oxidized to its final products, such as water and carbon dioxide.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51274106, 51474113, 51474037), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Provincial Higher Education of China (Grant No. 12KJA430001), the Science and Technology Support Program of Jiangsu Province of China (Grant No. BE2012143, BE2013071), the Jiangsu Province’s Postgraduate Cultivation and Innovation Project of China (Grant CXZZ13-0662, KYLX-1030, SJZZ-0132).

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  1. Institute for Advanced Materials, Jiangsu University, Jiangsu Province, Zhenjiang, 212013, China

    Lianli Zou, Xiangqian Shen, Qiuju Wang, Zhou Wang, Xinchun Yang & Maoxiang Jing

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  1. Lianli Zou
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Correspondence to Xiangqian Shen.

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Zou, L., Shen, X., Wang, Q. et al. Improvement of catalytic activity and mechanistic analysis of transition metal ion doped nanoCeO2 by aqueous Rhodamine B degradation. Journal of Materials Research 30, 2763–2771 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2015.263

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