Photo-, sono-, and sonophotocatalytic activity of metal oxide nanocomposites TiO₂/CeO₂ for degradation of dye

In present study, TiO₂ nanoparticles was modified by the addition of CeO₂ to increase efficiency and improve catalytic activity under visible light, ultrasonic irradiation, and combination of both irradiation. The as-prepared CeO₂ nanoparticles have been incorporated to mixture of TiO₂ with various molar ratio (x)TiO₂:(1-x)CeO₂ = 0.25:0.75; 0.5:0.5 and 0.75:0.25). Then the pristine TiO₂, CeO₂ and TiO₂/CeO₂ nanocomposites were identified by X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and the surface area was measured using Brunner-Emett teller (BET) measurement. The XRD results indicated that the CeO₂ was a face centered cubic structure and the TiO₂ was anatas structures. The as-prepared samples exhibit a good catalytic for the decolorization of methylene blue (MB) under visible light, ultrasonic irradiation, and combination of visible light and ultrasonic irradiation. The enhanced performance might be due to the lower recombination of charge carriers and surface properties of TiO₂/CeO₂. To further studies the catalytic mechanism the scavenger and initial solution experiment were also tested. Moreover, TiO₂/CeO₂ nanocomposites shows good cycle stability toward continuous four cycles runs of catalytic experiment for the degradation of MB.