Sonocatalytic degradation of caffeine using CeO2 catalyst: parametric and reusability studies

Abstract

Abstract This work examined sonocatalytic degradation of caffeine in the presence of CeO2 prepared by hydrothermal method. Several characterization techniques were used to study the CeO2 including TEM, XRD and BET method. Effects of various parameters such as pH, initial concentration of caffeine and dosage of CeO2 were investigated. This study also examined the reusability of CeO2. Results showed that the CeO2 had mixed shapes of crystallites consisting of rods and cubes with the specific surface area (Sbet) and pore volume of 126.63 m2/g and 0.4898 cm3/g, respectively. About 95.5% of caffeine degradation was achieved under the best parameter conditions i.e. at pH of 7.5, 5.0 mg/L of initial concentration of caffeine and 1.0 g/L of CeO2 dosage within 150 min. It was also revealed that the operating parameters played major roles in caffeine degradation efficiency. In addition, the CeO2 were quite stable since the efficiency of caffeine degradation achieved in the third cycle was 81.4%.