Line defect Ce³⁺ induced Ag/CeO₂/ZnO nanostructure for visible-light photocatalytic activity

This article reports, synthesis and characterization of the ternary Ag/CeO₂/ZnO nanostructure which was tested for visible light photocatalytic degradation of industrial textile effluent. The HR-TEM and XPS results confirms the presence of line dislocation linear defect induced oxygen vacancy in the ternary Ag/CeO₂/ZnO nanostructure. The oxygen vacancy creates narrow band gap (2.66 eV) was confirmed by DRS. The ternary Ag/CeO₂/ZnO nanostructure showed superior photocatalytic activity compared with pure ZnO, ZnO/Ag and ZnO/CeO₂ results because of the narrow band gap, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of Ag nanoparticles, synergistic effects, and defects (Ce³⁺ and oxygen vacancy) in CeO₂ and ZnO.