title: Ultrasonic-assisted synthesis of Ce doped cubic-hexagonal ZnTiO3 with highly efficient sonocatalytic activity.
abstract: Ce doped ZnTiO3 as a novel catalyst with highly efficient and stable sonocatalytic activity was synthesized via an ultrasound-assisted sol-gel method using non-ionic surfactant Pluronic F127 as structure directing agent. Synthesized samples were characterized by using various techniques, such as XRD, TEM, SEM, EDX, ​XRF, BET, DRS, and PL, and their sonocatalytic activity studied toward degradation of p-Nitrophenol as a model organic compound. The synthesized mesoporous Ce/ZnTiO3 had mixed cubic-hexagonal phase with large surface area (118.2 m(2) g(-1)) and narrow pore size distribution (4.9 nm). The effects of cerium concentration, calcination temperature, and calcination time on the structure and the sonocatalytic activity of Ce/ZnTiO3 were studied in detail. XRD results were suggested that the relation between the phase structure and the catalytic activity is considerable. Significant decrease in band-gap and PL intensity was observed with increasing the cerium concentration in the ZnTiO3. It became clear that the Ce/ZnTiO3 (0.81 mol%) shows high sonocatalytic activity compared with pure ZnTiO3 and other Ce/ZnTiO3 samples as well as commercial TiO2-P25. The possible mechanism for the enhanced sonocatalytic activity of Ce/ZnTiO3 was discussed in details. The electrical energy consumption was also considered during sonocatalytic experiments.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hamed
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Eskandarloo
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. Electronic address: abadiei@khayam.ut.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Alireza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Badiei
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: Mohammad A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Behnajady
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Amirrasoul
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tavakoli
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Ghodsi Mohammadi
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Ziarani
keywords: Cerium doping; Sonocatalytic activity; Sonochemichal synthesis; Structural properties; Zinc titanate