Significant Effect of Graphene on Catalytic Degradation of Methylene Blue by Pure and Ce-Doped Tio2 at Nanoscale

Abstract

A novel Ce-TiO2/graphene composite photocatalyst was synthesized by method of hydrothermal. The synthesized catalysts were analyzed by TEM, XRD, and XPS, DRS and PL spectroscopy, TGA and GC-MS. The results demonstrate that CeTiO2/graphenecatalysts showed enhanced absorption of light energy in visible region, also inhibited the recombination of charge carrier due to cooperative effects of graphene and cerium. The photocatalytic action of prepared catalysts was investigated by degradation of dye methylene blue (MB) under solar irradiation. The GC-MS results shows that the dye Methylene Blue has completely mineralized to CO2 and H2O. The synthesized composites of Ce-TiO2/graphene showed enhanced catalytic activity for MB degradation compared to Ce-TiO2 and pure TiO2. The improved photocatalytic degradation of MB can be attributed to excellent properties of graphene.