Synthesis Of Rare Earth Oxides Composite Photocatalyst And Its Application In Degradation Of Organic Compounds In Water

With the rapid development of industry, more and more waste water containing phenol, dyes, pesticides et al., was discharged into environment, which seriously contaminate the environment. Many methods have been tried for the removal of contaminants from wastewater, including chemical precipitation, reverse osmosis, adsorption, ion exchange and photocatalytic oxidation etc. Semiconductor photocatalysis has been extensively studied as a viable water treatment method because of its less contaminant and fast degradation. Up to date, diverse photocatalytic materials have been introduced, including TiO2, CdS, ZnO, Fe3O4, SnO2, and BiVO4. As rare earth metal oxides have high optical transparency in the visible region, and high capacity to store oxygen, it become the most potential candidates for photocatalytic oxidation. In this work, rare earth oxides (Ce, Y) photocatalysts have been synthesized and characterized. Their photocatalytic performances on dyes and phonels have been investigated.The main contents of this work are as follows:1. CeO2-Fe3O4 and GO-Y2O3 photocatalysts were synthesized and characterized by XRD,SEM,TEM,IR and TGA.2. Firstly,0.5CeO2-Fe3O4 composite was snythesized by hydrothermal method in this work. With the aid of 300W metal halide lamp and NaBH4,1.8mmol p-nitrophenol could degrade within 35 minutes (degradation rate was 98.5%). In addition, degradation efficiency under different experimental conditions were also investigated.3. Then graphene oxide and yttrium oxide composite was obtained. It was found that GO-Y2O3 containing 50mg graphene oxide (5OGO-Y2O3) had good photocatalytic performance on degradation of methyl orange (MO). Under UV irradiation,20 ml MO (20 mg/L) could be degraded thoroughly within 70 minutes.4. The GO-Y2O3 composite also showed excellent photocatalytic performance on methylene blue (MB). But it is different to MO,5mg graphene oxide and yttrium oxide (5GO-Y2O3) composite had the best photocatalytic performance on MB. Under UV irradiation,8mg 5GO-Y2O3 composite could degrade 20mL MB (22.5mg/L) thoroughly within 35 minutes.The experimental results showed that the rare earth nanocomposites have excellent photocatalytic performance toward organic pollutants in water, which provides theoretical support for the development and application of new types of rare earth nanocomposites in water treatment.