Photocatalytic and corrosion inhibitor performances of CeO2 nanoparticles decorated by noble metals: Au, Ag, Pt

Abstract The present work aims to study the photocatalytic degradation and inhibitor corrosion properties of based on CeO2 nanoparticles (CeNPs). Moreover, this article seeks to investigate the effect of doping CeNPs by plasmonic nanoparticles, as gold (AuNPs), silver (AgNPs) and platinum (PtNPs). CeNPs are obtained by a precipitation process, while the deposition precipitation using urea (DPU) method was chosen to dope the CeNPs. The physicochemical characteristics of materials have performed using various techniques such as: XRD, RD/UV–vis, FTIR, BET, and TG-DTA analysis. The photocatalytic performance of the synthesized nanomaterials was investigated in terms of their efficiency for the photodegradation of methyl orange (MO) in an aqueous solution under different illumination (UVA and UVC). The degradation rates exceeding 92 % could be achieved in very short times depending on the dopant and the illumination nature. However, the corrosion inhibition properties of synthesized nanomaterials on mild steel in acid medium (hydrochloric acid, 1 N) were estimated using a weight loss method. The inhibition efficiency achieved 80–96 % and increase with concentration. It was concluded that the studied nanomaterials are a potential photocatalysts and corrosion inhibitors.