Monolithic heterojunctions of CeO2/La2O3/TiO2 nanocomposites as visible-light capturing photoactive materials for fast and efficient clean-up of persistent pharmaceutical pollutants

We report the first of its kind synthesis of CeO 2 /La 2 O 3 nanocomposites that are with integrated mesoporous TiO 2 monoliths, with well-defined structural and surface properties, to act as visible-light responsive photocatalysts. The structural features of the photocatalyst materials are defined...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inBulletin of materials science Vol. 44; no. 2; p. 99
Main Authors Prasad, A Satya, Kumar, S Naveen, Maheswari, M Akhila, Prabhakaran, D
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bangalore Indian Academy of Sciences 01.06.2021
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Antibiotics
Cerium oxides
Chemicals
Chemistry and Materials Science
Drugs
Engineering
Fourier transforms
Heterojunctions
Lanthanum oxides
Light
Materials Science
Morphology
Nanocomposites
Oxidation
Pharmaceuticals
Photocatalysis
Photocatalysts
Photodegradation
Photolysis
Pollutants
Pollution transport
Porous materials
Surface properties
Surfactants
Titanium dioxide
X ray photoelectron spectroscopy
photocatalysis
antibiotics
Porous materials
photolysis
monoliths
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Summary:We report the first of its kind synthesis of CeO 2 /La 2 O 3 nanocomposites that are with integrated mesoporous TiO 2 monoliths, with well-defined structural and surface properties, to act as visible-light responsive photocatalysts. The structural features of the photocatalyst materials are defined using HR-TEM, p-XRD, FE-SEM, SAED, EDAX, XPS, PLS, TGA, IR, UV–Vis–DRS and BET/BJH analyses. The stoichiometric infusion of CeO 2 /La 2 O 3 nanocomposites with the monolithic TiO 2 network reduces the bandgap energy from 3.26 to 2.52 eV, thus promoting excellent visible-light photocatalysis. To evaluate the photocatalytic efficiency of the proposed photoactive materials, two antimicrobial drugs namely, moxifloxacin and ciprofloxacin are selected as target pollutants. It is observed that the uniform and continuous porous monolithic network ensures easy transport of pollutant molecules to the photoactive sites, thereby felicitating their faster dissipation. The influence of various physico-chemical parameters has been studied by photolysis and photocatalysis procedures, and the extent of drug degradation is quantitatively analysed by using a robust HPLC-DAD method. The photocatalysis results reveal that the monolithic photocatalyst can serve efficiently for environmental remediation applications, with excellent reusability character. Graphic abstract
ISSN:0250-4707
0973-7669
DOI:10.1007/s12034-021-02393-7