Synthesis of monodisperse CeO2 hollow spheres with enhanced photocatalytic activity

This paper presents a facile synthesis of monodisperse CeO2 hollow spheres with enhanced photocatalytic activity. In this approach, after ceria precursor was coated on poly(styrene-co-acrylic acid) spheres via sol-gel method, the cores were simply removed by calcination and the shells synchronously changed from amorphous state to CeO2 crystalline structure. The as-obtained CeO2 hollow spheres exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity under visible light. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.