Abstract
Tuning morphology and doping additional rare earth (RE) cations are potential techniques to promote the photocatalytic performance of ceria (CeO2), evaluating the collaborative effects of morphology and RE dopants is significant for producing high active ceria-based catalysts. So in this work, cubic, polyhedral and rod-like nanoceria doped with 10 mol % La (lanthanum), Y (yttrium), or Sm (samarium) were synthesized by a facile template-free hydrothermal method. Phases, morphologies, oxygen vacancies (OVs) concentration, energy band structure, photo-carriers separation/recombination, and photodegradation ratio toward methylene blue (MB) dye of as prepared ceria were studied. Results show that doped CeO2 maintains a similar morphology structure with un-doped sample and the band gap narrows slightly. Y-doped nanoceria, with an improved separation and a reduced recombination of photo-excited electrons (e−) and holes (h+), owns a higher MB photodegradation ratio than that of samples doping with La or Sm, which is measured as 79.04, 84.43, and 85.59% for Y-doped cubic, polyhedral, and rod-like CeO2. The collaborative influence of morphology tuning and RE (La, Y, and Sm) doping on photocatalytic performance of nanoceria includes the effects of doped elements and the formation of OVs. The elevation of OVs concentration as well as the separation efficiency of photo-generated e−/h+ are suggested to further enhance the photocatalytic performance of ceria.
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Funding
This study received financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 52164025, 51804088, 52164017, U1812402, 52074096, and 51774102, Guizhou Provincial Science and Technology Projects under the Grant No. [2017]5788, [2018]5781, [2020]1Y219, and [2019]1082, and the Doctor Funding of Guizhou University with Grant No. (2017)04.
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All authors contributed to the study conception, literature, analysis, and writing. Prof. Yuan-Pei Lan, Prof. Junqi Li, and Prof. Chaoyi Chen put forward the research ideas and finally approved the whole content. Deyang Ning, Zhiyao Chu, and Xisong Mao did the experiments and characterizations. Associate Xuewen Xia directed the research data, analyzed the results, and organized the writing framework. Junshan Zhang and Fengyuan Liu discussed the characterization results.
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Xia, X., Li, J., Chen, C. et al. Collaborative influence of morphology tuning and RE (La, Y, and Sm) doping on photocatalytic performance of nanoceria. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 88866–88881 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21787-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21787-6