Sonocatalytic degradation of methylene blue using spindle shaped cerium oxide nanoparticles

The industrial revolution has raised major concern of environmental pollution, due to excess release of hazardous chemical, dyes, etc. into water bodies. The present crises of water have attracted considerable attention of scientific drive on development of new technologies on recovery and water purification. Sonochemistry with zero secondary pollutants has been considered as a potential, and greener technologies for water security. In the present work, we synthesized cerium oxide (CeO2) nanoparticles for its dynamic application in opto-electronic field. The work involves the systematic study of sonocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) (40 kHz, 80W) using cerium oxide (CeO2) nanomaterial as a catalyst. Time dependent synthesis of CeO2 is carried out using co-precipitation method at 120 degrees C, followed by calcination. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern and Raman studies confirms high crystallinity (similar to crystallite size of 10-15 nm) with cubic fluorite phase. The microscopic studies using field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), and transmission electron microscope (TEM) confirmed a spindle shaped morphology. Ninety percent sono-cataclytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) is observed using CeO2 synthesized with a reaction time of 2 h (surface area of 62 m(2)g(-1) with pore size of 1.5 nm). The observed sono-catalytic degradation, follow first order reaction kinetics with regression coefficient of 0.92 with rate constant 0.018 min(-1). The study reveals that the CeO2 spindles can act as excellent catalysts for sono-catalytic degradation activities and for water purification owing to their excellent surface properties.