Synthesis of nanoceria from salophen metal complex and employed in photocatalytic degradation of malachite green

CeO₂ nanoparticles are attracting more attention from researchers because of their free-radical scavenging properties and ability to interchange between Ce⁴⁺ and Ce³⁺ redox state. Here, the Ce(IV) metal complex has been synthesized from the Salophen Schiff base ligand by the refluxing method and characterized using UV–VIS, FT-IR, ¹H-NMR, and conductivity. Then, the complex was employed as a precursor to synthesize CeO₂ nanoparticles by the solid-state thermal decomposition method. The structure (shape and size), properties, and morphology of the nanoparticle have been identified by FT-IR, XRD, FESEM, and EDAX techniques. The nanoparticle was employed to check the photocatalytic activity against Malachite Green dye degradation, where the effect have been made by varying pH value, dye concentration, catalyst concentration, reaction temperature, H₂O₂ concentration, and different sources of light. As a source of light direct sunlight and UV radiation (UV-365 and UV-254 nm) were used. The degradation kinetics followed the pseudo-first-order kinetic model with activation energy 39 kJ mol⁻¹.