Enhanced photocatalytic performance of Ce-doped NiO nanoparticles synthesized by coprecipitation method
Shilpa Thakur, Rajender Kumar, Naresh Kumar Dhiman, Ashwani Kumar
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.