Green synthesis of CeO2:Cr3+ and ZrO2:Fe3+ Structural and PL studies

Recently, nanocrystalline Cerium dioxide (CeO2) material creates numerous interests because of its fluorite-type structure, notable redox nature and major oxygen storage and release capacity (OSC) through superficial change between Ce4+ state and Ce3+ oxidation state. The CeO2 material have wide spread of applications including catalysts, solar cells, ultraviolet (UV) blocking filters, gas sensors and etc. In nanocrystalline CeO2, oxygen vacancies lead to oxygen conduction. Mainly, the control of morphology and crystallite size on the property of ceria leads to considerable significance due to grain boundaries reactions and significant depletion of carriers in anisotropic nano-systems can effectively changes the redox/transport nature. Non - stoichiometric nature of CeO2 was more prominent in nanocrystalline form due to its enhanced surface to volume ratio results decrease of crystallite size leads to reduction of formation energy of oxygen vacancies. Zirconia (ZrO2) is an n-type semiconductor with band gap ∼ 5.0 eV and was widely employed as a raw material in textiles, cosmetics, ceramics, solid oxide fuel cell electrolytes, gas sensors and optical devices.