Facile synthesis of 3D flowerlike CeO2 microspheres under mild condition with high catalytic performance for CO oxidation.

Three-dimensional (3D) hierarchical flowerlike CeO(2) microspheres with 5-8μm diameter were hydrothermally synthesized by using multiple surfactants at very mild condition (100°C) and characterized by XRD, low-temperature N(2) adsorption, SEM, TEM, TG, FT-IR, and UV-vis spectroscopies. The results show that the flowerlike ceria prepared with the co-surfactant of sodium dodecyl sulfonic and PEG 600 possesses multilevel pore structure and low band gap energy. A possible formation mechanism of flowerlike ceria is that 3D flowerlike microspheres are assembled by 1D nanowires formed through an aggregation of 0D nanoparticles. Based on the unique structure and morphology, the prepared flowerlike CeO(2) exhibits more amount of surface capping oxygen, higher concentrations of Ce(3+) and O vacancy, and more (100) lattice planes, resulting in its higher catalytic activity for CO oxidation than general bulk ceria. Furthermore, photoluminescence property testing shows that flowerlike CeO(2) exhibits the violet blue light emission with a blue shift, because of the quantum size effect, differing from general ceria.