Abstract
Development of nanocomposites as efficient photocatalysts for the removal of hazardous organic pollutants is always in dire demand due to increase in water pollution. In this article, a facile sol-gel method has been used to synthesize cerium oxide (CeO2) nanoparticles followed by their decoration over multi-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene oxide (GO) to construct binary as well ternary hybrid nanocomposites using ultrasonic treatment. The oxygen vacancy defects have been depicted using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) that may result into improved photocatalytic efficiency. The ternary hybrid nanocomposites (CeO2/CNT/GO) showed excellent photocatalytic efficiency towards degradation of rose bengal (RB) dye up to 96.9% in 50 min. CNTs and GO provide the interfacial charge transfer which inhibits the electron-hole pair recombination. The results obtained here indicate that these composites can be effectively utilized as promising materials for the degradation of harmful organic pollutants for wastewater treatment.
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Acknowledgements
S.C. acknowledges the DIT University, Dehradun for the seed money grant (DITU/R&D/2022/017/Physics) and DST-FIST laboratory at DCRUST, Murthal for providing characterization instrumentation facility. P.K. is grateful to J.C. Bose University of Science and Technology, YMCA, Faridabad for the seed award (R&D/SG/2020-21/172) and CIL for instrumentation facility.
Funding
S.C. was financially supported by a seed money grant (DITU/R&D/2022/017/Physics) from the DIT University, Dehradun. P.K. was financially supported by a seed award (R&D/SG/2020-21/172) from J.C. Bose University of Science and Technology, YMCA, Faridabad.
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Surjeet Chahal: investigation, validation, formal analysis, visualization, funding acquisition, writing — original draft; Lakshita Phor: formal analysis, draft writing; Ashok Kumar: supervision, writing — review and editing; Suresh Kumar, Sandeep Kumar, Ravi Kumar: writing — review and editing; Parmod Kumar: writing — review and editing, funding acquisition, supervision.
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Chahal, S., Phor, L., Kumar, A. et al. Enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic dye by CeO2/CNT/GO hybrid nanocomposites under UV light for wastewater treatment. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 124964–124975 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26184-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26184-1