A facile polyol-mediated approach to tunable CeO2 microcrystals and their photocatalytic activity

• A solvothermal method was used to prepare CeO2 microcrystals with different shapes.
• The polyol–ethanol mixed solvent was employed as the reaction medium.
• The composition of polyol and concentration of oleic acid influence the shape of CeO2.
• The CeO2 microcrystals showed different optical and photocatalytic properties.

An efficient solvothermal method was developed to prepare CeO2 microcrystals with different shapes using a polyol–ethanol mixed solvent as the reaction medium. The as-synthesized product was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), and UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). It was found that different kinds or amounts of polyols and the concentration of oleic acid have significant impacts on the well-defined CeO2 microcrystals. The as-synthesized CeO2 microcrystals displayed different optical absorption properties and different photocatalytic performances for the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under UV and visible light irradiation, which was used to model sunlight.

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