Study on the construction of YMnO3/CeO2 composite photocatalyst heterostructure and photocatalytic degradation of methyl red

The present investigation reports, the novel chemical synthesis of the CeO2, YMnO3 and YMnO3/CeO2 oxides using sonochemistry method and their physicochemical characterization. Phase structure and functional group analysis indicates that the CeO2, YMnO3 and YMnO3/CeO2 oxides has good crystallization with a polycrystalline structure and only a few NO3 - impurities. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) reveals that a nanoscale ball shape with a size range of 30-100 nm consist of the CeO2, YMnO3 and YMnO3/CeO2 oxides. The optical absorption band gap of the CeO2, YMnO3 and YMnO3 /CeO2 oxides was estimated to be 3.03, 1.03 and 2.51 eV, respectively. Photoluminescence, electrochemical and photocatalytic experiments indicates that the YMnO3/CeO2 oxides exhibits high photocatalytic activity due to the strong absorption capacity, fluorescence quenching, low interfacial resistance, high photocurrent density and low charge recombination rate.