Facile sonochemical synthesis and electrochemical investigation of ceria/graphene nanocomposites

Abstract

The potential benefits of decorated graphene are of great interest as they may lead to technological advancements in fabricating electro-chemical devices for catalysis, sensing and energy storage. In this study, we have developed a self-assembly approach to anchor CeO₂ nanoparticles on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) through a facile, efficient sonochemical method. We characterized the CeO₂–RGO nanocomposites using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The results reveal that CeO₂ nanoparticles with a uniform size distribution are anchored on RGO. Furthermore, we investigated the electrochemical properties of CeO₂–RGO nanocomposites for different probes by using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. We found that a suitable loading content of CeO₂ on RGO can induce a synergistic effect for optimizing the electro-catalytic activity of the nanocomposites. Our findings will have a profound effect on the use of CeO₂–RGO nanocomposites in electrochemical devices.