Improved photocatalytic decomposition of aqueous Rhodamine-B by solar light illuminated hierarchical yttria nanosphere decorated ceria nanorods

摘要

We report the new synthesis route of hierarchical yttria (Y2O3) nanosphere decorated ceria (CeO2) nanorods from the precursor cerium nitrate and yttrium nitrate under hydrothermal method (HM). Synthesized nanorods (NRs) were analyzed by different techniques to investigate their textural morphology, size and shape of nanorods and crystalline structures, morphology growth, optical activity and sizes of the samples. The luminescence blue peaks were observed in the range of 450–490nm and green emission appeared at 533nm at the room temperature (RT), the presence of oxygen vacancies was confirmed. The photodecomposition nature of the prepared nanosamples was investigated by using the industrial effluent Rhodamine-B (RhB) dye in aqueous medium by the illumination of solar light. The photocatalytic degradation efficiency showed 95.8% for RhB after 240min. On illumination of visible light, the catalyst was found to tend to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), which might account for the decay of dyes into small fractions. The enhanced photocatalytic effect of the synthesized NRs was primarily ascribed to the rising in the separation efficiency of electrons and holes.