Visible Light Photocatalytic Activity of CeO2-ZnO-TiO2 Composites for the Degradation of Rhodamine B

Abstract

TiO2 plays a significant role in many applications including solar cell. Consecutively to absorb the low-energy radiation, it is very much essential to tune the optical property of TiO2. We fabricated CeO2-ZnO-TiO2 semiconductor composites by sol-gel method and achieved the absorption of lower energy radiation. The prepared composites were characterized by TG-DTA, UV-DRS, XRD, AFM, TEM and FESEM techniques. The particle and crystalline size of the composites was calculated using FESEM and XRD techniques, respectively. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized composite for the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under visible light irradiation was investigated. The photocatalytic degradation of RhB under various experimental conditions such as amount of catalyst, initial dye concentration and H2O2 amount was also demonstrated and the rate constant was calculated using L-H model.