Controlled synthesis of CeVO4 hierarchical hollow microspheres with tunable hollowness and their efficient photocatalytic activity

• Published in: CrystEngComm Vol. 2; no. 31; pp. 4499 - 455
• Main Authors: Ding, Jinjin, Liu, Xuan, Wang, Miao, Liu, Quan, Sun, Tongming, Jiang, Guoqing, Tang, Yanfeng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Royal Society of Chemistry 2018
• Subjects: Aspartic acid; Catalytic activity; Chemical synthesis; Cubes; Microspheres; Morphology; Ostwald ripening; Photocatalysis; Photodegradation; Pollutants; Porosity; Reaction time; Rhodamine; Self-assembly; Time dependence; Ultraviolet radiation
• ISSN: 1466-8033
• DOI: 10.1039/c8ce00695d

Well-dispersed hollow CeVO 4 microspheres with tunable hollowness and porosity have been synthesized via a simple hydrothermal method using l -aspartic acid ( l -Asp) as the capping agent. The products were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM and DRS. The XRD results showed that the as-prepared samples were tetragonal phase CeVO 4 with high crystallinity. SEM and TEM observations indicated that the hierarchical hollow microspheres with different hollowness were constructed from nanoparticles, cubes or nanoflakes. N 2 adsorption-desorption measurements revealed that the BET specific surface area of the typical CeVO 4 hollow microspheres was up to 106.54 m 2 g −1 . During the synthesis, the amount of l -Asp and the reaction time were found to play important roles in determining the growth process and final morphologies of the CeVO 4 products. Time-dependent experiments clearly revealed that the CeVO 4 hierarchical hollow microspheres were governed by the self-assembly and Ostwald ripening process. Rhodamine B (RhB) was used as the dye pollutant for evaluating the photocatalytic properties of the products under UV radiation. The CeVO 4 hierarchical hollow microspheres exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity and good stability even after five repeated cycles of use, indicating that the CeVO 4 hierarchical hollow microspheres can be good candidates for photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants. CeVO 4 hierarchical hollow microspheres assembled from nanoscaled building units (nanoparticles, nanocubes and nanoflakes) were synthesized by a one-step hydrothermal approach using l -Asp as the morphology-directing agent.