An insight on the role of Pr in the photocatalytic efficiency of mesoporous CeO2@C

Using Ce(NO3)3·6H2O and Pr(NO3)3·6H2O as raw materials, ammonium hydroxide as precipitate, acid red 14 (AR14) as carbon source, Ce-Pr-O@C was synthesized in this study. The structural properties of the resulted samples were characterized by XRD, N2 adsorption–desorption, Raman, TEM, UV–vis, FT-IR, and XPS techniques. The photocatalytic efficiency of Ce-Pr-O@C was evaluated by the degradation of AR14. Effect of Pr doping on the photocatalytic efficiency of Ce-Pr-O@C was focused on. The results show that 25% Pr doping amount is benefit for the formation of mesopores, improvement of hydroxyl group content, enhancement of bonding rate, resulting in the promotion of adsorption capacity of organic pollutants and separation of photogenerated electron and hole and thus increasing of photocatatlytic efficiency. Moreover, effect of carbon loading amount on the photocatatlytic efficiency was also investigated.