Preparation and Characterization of Cerium Doped Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles by the Electrical Discharge Method

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2) are known as a widely used photocatalyst. In order to improve the performance of these nanoparticles, the recombination of the electron-cavity pair must be reduced and the absorption rate of the visible region should be expanded. One way to increase the performance of these nanoparticles is using cerium doped TiO2. In the present study, pure and doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles were made by the electrical discharge method. The effect of cerium dopants on the structural, morphological and optical properties were studied by x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), diffused reflection spectroscopy (DRS), photoluminescence (PL) and infrared fourier transform (FTIR) spectroscopy analyses. XRD analysis revealed that the size of TiO2 nanocrystals was decreased to 7.7 nm. The FESEM morphology of the samples also showed that the uniformity of the Ce doped TiO2 was decreased. Further, the DRS results indicated that the band gap energy of Ce-TiO2 was decreased to 2.24 eV. The photoluminescence results demonstrated that the intensity of PL was reduced for the Ce-TiO2 sample, which reduced the recombination of the electron-hole coupling and increased the photocatalytic activity in the doped sample.