Enhancement of catalytic activity by UV-light irradiation in CeO2 nanocrystals

Abstract

Ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation on CeO2 nanocrystals catalysts has been observed to largely increase the material’s catalytic activity and reactive surface area. As revealed by x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) analysis, the concentration of subvalent Ce3+ ions in the irradiated ceria samples progressively increases with the UV-light exposure time. The increase of Ce3+ concentration as a result of UV irradiation was also confirmed by the UV-vis diffuse reflectance and photoluminescence spectra that indicate substantially increased concentration of oxygen vacancy defects in irradiated samples. First-principle formation-energy calculation for oxygen vacancy defects revealed a valence-hole-dominated mechanism for the irradiation-induced reduction of CeO2 consistent with the experimental results. Based on a Mars-van Krevelen mechanism for ceria catalyzed oxidation processes, as the Ce3+ concentration is increased by UV-light irradiation, an increased number of reactive oxygen atoms will be captured from gas-phase O2 by the surface Ce3+ ions, and therefore leads to the observed catalytic activity enhancement. The unique annealing-free defect engineering method using UV-light irradiation provides an ultraconvenient approach for activity improvement in nanocrystal ceria for a wide variety of catalytic applications.