Synthesis, characterization and computational study of nitrogen-doped CeO2 nanoparticles with visible-light activity

Abstract

Nitrogen-doped CeO2 nanoparticles were synthesized through a wet-chemical route. Nitrogen has been successfully incorporated into CeO2 nanoparticles and the nitrogen-doping level was also successfully controlled. The optical properties due to the different N-doping levels in CeO2 nanoparticles were characterized by UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), which showed a visible-light absorbance shift. The resulting nanoparticles show enhanced visible-light sensitivity and photocatalytic activity compared to undoped CeO2 nanoparticles. DFT calculations were performed to explore the effect of nitrogen doping versus oxygen vacancies. The calculations show that the change of the electronic structure upon N-doping CeO2 is quite different from that of N-doped TiO2, which has been studied extensively.

Synthesis, Characterization, and Photocatalytic Properties of Flower-like Mn-doped Ceria

“…To the best of our knowledge, one of approaches is to develop CeO 2 based heterostructure semiconductor systems, such as TiO 2 @Pt@ . On the other hand, there have been modifications of CeO 2 by doping non-metallic species 13,14 and crystal facet engineering 15,16 . For instance, Zhu et al 13 reported the synthesis of N-doped CeO 2 nanoparticles with controllable doping levels at the nanoscale through a reliable wet chemical approach, showing enhanced visiblelight sensitivity and photocatalytic activity.…”

Band gap energies for white nanosheets/yellow nanoislands/purple nanorods of CeO2

“…[7][8][9] In particular, cerium oxide is one of the most promising materials, exhibiting excellent properties in gas sensors, 10 solar cells 11 and opticalbased non-volatile ash memory. These properties are dominated by their nanostructure and micro-morphology; therefore, various methods such as microwave-assisted thermal decomposition, 24 spray pyrolysis, 25 sol-gel processing 26 and hydrothermal methods 27 have been employed to prepare cerium oxide nanosheets, nanorods, nanowires and nanotubes. These properties are dominated by their nanostructure and micro-morphology; therefore, various methods such as microwave-assisted thermal decomposition, 24 spray pyrolysis, 25 sol-gel processing 26 and hydrothermal methods 27 have been employed to prepare cerium oxide nanosheets, nanorods, nanowires and nanotubes.…”

Role of vacancies, light elements and rare-earth metals doping in CeO2

“…One of the most effective methods is doping. Zr- and La-doped CeO 2 have found their potential application in solar cell devices10, Mao et al demonstrated that N-doped CeO 2 shows a visible-light absorbance shift11.…”