Enhanced photocatalytic performance of Ce-doped NiO nanoparticles synthesized by coprecipitation method

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to examine the synthesized pure and Ce-doped NiO nanoparticles' photocatalytic activity for the degradation of the water pollutant dye Rhodamine B. Firstly these nanoparticles were synthesized using co-precipitation method. X-ray diffraction analysis was used to evaluate the crystallite size and confirmed that synthesized nanoparticles had a single cubic phase. Additionally, various characterization such as UV–vis spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, Raman, Scanning electron microscopy, Transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller were done to evaluate band gap energy, functional group, phase identification, morphology, oxidation states of the elements and surface area of the synthesized nanoparticles. The degradation efficiency of Rhodamine B dye was found to be 85.99 % and 94.06 % for pure NiO and Ce-doped NiO nanoparticles respectively. The dielectric properties of said nanoparticles were analyzed, which make these nanoparticles will also be useful in optoelectronics.

Keywords

• X-ray diffraction
• Coprecipitation
• Dielectric constant
• Photocatalysis