Evaluation on the heterostructured CeO2/Y2O3 binary metal oxide nanocomposites for UV/Vis light induced photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine - B dye for textile engineering application

Abstract

In the present study, we describe an effective synthetic strategy of pure and heterostructured CeO2/Y2O3 binary metal oxide nanostructures in distinct molar ratios (1:1; 1:2 & 2:1) in which sodium hydroxide act as a reducing agent under chemical precipitation assisted hydrothermal method (CPHM). Controlled shape and size of CeO2/Y2O3 hierarchical nanostructures was achieved by using cerium nitrate and yttrium nitrate as a precursor. Synthesized nanostructure was fully analyzed by various techniques to detect its crystalline nature such as size, morphology; purity & optical activity is followed by the evaluation of its photocatalytic activity in the degradation of RhB dye. The crystalline structure was examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD), shows the cubic phase for both metal oxides in synthesized systems and found to be an efficient catalyst to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) in presence of UV/Visible light, which tends to degrade various polyaromatic organic dyes into small fractions. Among all the heterostructured CeO2/Y2O3 binary metal oxide nanostructures the Ce2/Y1 sample shows the formation of hierarchical nanorods with particle diameter in the range of 8–50 nm. Due to their hierarchical one-dimensional nanostructures and increased surface areas, the CeO2/Y2O3 hierarchical nanorods exhibit substantially higher photocatalytic performance than the pure CeO2 and other mixed nanostructures in the degradation of RhB synthetic dye.