Lanthanum doped Ceria Nanoparticles: a Promising Material for Energy Applications

In this work, we report the structural and catalytic properties of Lanthanum doped Ceria nanostructures. The La-doped Ceria nanoparticles (Ce0.8La0.2O2-x) were prepared by co-precipitating lanthanum nitrate hexahydrate and cerium (III) nitrate hexahydrate at pH 8. The differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in conjunction with X-ray diffraction results depicted low temperature crystallization as early as 300 °C. This is the lowest reported temperature data for the La-doped Ceria system synthesized without any complexing agent/ligand, till date. The lattice parameter was calculated to be 5.492 ± 0.004 Å; the crystallite size was obtained as ∼ 8 nm by Scherrer method. The structural and redox properties have been investigated by various characterization techniques, e.g., X-ray diffraction (XRD), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Temperature programmed reduction (TPR),Temperature programmed desorption (TPD). The catalytic properties of the Ce0.8La0.2O2-x nanostructures proved them to be useful for future energy related applications.