Synthesis and characterization of CNT/Ce-TiO2 nanocomposite for phenol degradation

• Published in: Journal of rare earths Vol. 30; no. 7; pp. 651 - 658
• Main Authors: Shaari, N, Tan, SH, Mohamed, AR
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.07.2012
• Subjects: carbon nanotube (CNT); cerium; nanocomposite; Nanocomposites; Nanomaterials; Nanostructure; Phenol; Photocatalysis; photocatalyst; Rare earth metals; rare earths; Scanning electron microscopy; TiO2; TiO2光催化剂; Titanium dioxide; 合成; 扫描电子显微镜; 紫外光照射; 纳米复合材料; 苯酚降解; 表征; 透射电子显微镜; cerium; nanocomposite; phenol; carbon nanotube (CNT); photocatalyst; TiO2; rare earths
• ISSN: 1002-0721; 2509-4963
• DOI: 10.1016/S1002-0721(12)60107-0

An innovative photocatalyst, Carbon nanotube （CNT） supported Ce-TiO2 nanocomposite was successfully synthesized via modi-fied sol gel method and investigated in a batch reactor for abolition of phenol under UV light spectrum. Characterization of catalyst micro-structure and internal properties were done by means of X-ray diffraction （XRD）, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller （BET）, scanning electron micros-copy （SEM）, transmission electron microscopy （TEM） and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra （DRS）. Ce doping can inhibit phase transfor-mation from anatase to rutile and eliminate the recombination of electron-hole pairs in the catalyst. The presence of CNT in TiO2 composite can both increase the photoactivity under UV and change surface properties to achieve sensitivity to visible light. The optimum mass ratio of CNT support and cerium （Ce） dopant in TiO2 was the prominent factor to harvest CNT/Ce-TiO2 photocatalyst nanocomposite. The results demonstrated that optimum mass ratio of CNT：TiO2：Ce was 0.02：1.0：0.06, which resulted in the great performance of the photocatalyst to de-grade about 94% of phenol in a 50 mg/L solution in only 3 h. In this paper, dissimilar role of CNT support and Ce dopant in the TiO2 photo-catalysis of phenol was also discussed.