Catalytic Dye Oxidation over CeO2 Nanoparticles Supported on Regenerated Cellulose Membrane

A novel regenerated cellulose (RC) membrane containing cerium oxide (CeO2)anoparticles is described in detail. In this work,CeO2nanoparticles with high surface area and mesoporosity were prepared by a modified emplate-assisted precipitation method. Successful synthesis was achieved using cerium nitrate as a precursor, adjusting the final pH solution to around 11 by ammonium hydroxide and ethylene diamine, and annealing at 550 degrees C for 3 hours under a protective gas flow. This resulted in a surface area of 55.55 m(2).g-1for the nanoparticles. The regen-erated cellulose membrane containing CeO2 particles was synthesized by the novel and environmentally friendly method. The catalyst CeO2and cellulose/CeO2membrane were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spec-troscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) measurements. The g-value of 2.276 has confirmed the presence of the surface superoxide species of CeO2nanoparticles in EPR. The photocatalytic activity of the catalyst and the membrane containing the catalyst was evaluated through the degradation of methylene blue under visible light irradiation by UV-VIS measurements. The cellulose/CeO2membrane degraded 80% of the methylene blue solution in 120 minutes, showing a better pho-tocatalytic activity than the CeO2 catalyst, which degraded approximately 62% in the same period. It has been proven that the RC membrane is not only a good transparent supporting material but also a good adsorption for high-performance of CeO2catalyst Copyright (c) 2022 by Authors, Published by BCREC Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).