Rational design of light induced self healed Fe based oxygen vacancy rich CeO2 (CeO2NS–FeOOH/Fe2O3) nanostructure materials for photocatalytic water oxidation and Cr(vi) reduction

Abstract

The designing of novel heterostructures for excellent photocatalytic activity has recently gathered intense attention and has exerted an enormous fascination. In this regard 2D nanoarchitectured CeO₂–FeOOH/Fe₂O₃ heterostructures have been synthesized controllably through a hydrothermal process. The nanohybrids present an excellent performance towards photocatalytic (O₂ evolution and Cr(VI) reduction) as well as photoelectrochemical activity. Our results show that oxygen vacancies are induced due to the incorporation of low-cost iron materials (FeOOH and Fe₂O₃) onto CeO₂, later confirmed by XPS and TEM analysis, which enhances the charge separation through an n–n junction, leading to enhanced catalytic activity. Furthermore, the highlighted feature of our synthesized binary hybrid is the self-healing process under light irradiation, which repairs structural damage without any activator, that mimics the self-repairing effect of living organisms. This work represents the concept of integrating different functional materials into one nanoarchitectured material and provides useful information about structural regeneration, which may be useful for the development of a new generation of auto-healing nanoarchitectured materials.