A novel Ce(IO3)4 catalyst: Facile preparation and high activity in degradation of organic dyes without light irradiation at room temperature

Developing efficient catalysts capable of degrading organic dye free of light irradiation is highly interesting from the energy-saving point of view. In this work, we prepared a new Ce(IO3)4 catalyst by a facile precipitation method. The obtained Ce(IO3)4 sample showed remarkably superior performance to the reported CeGeO4 analog in degradation of rhodamine B (RhB), methyl orange (MO) or methylene blue (MB) dyes in the dark at room temperature. The ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) absorption spectra of dye solution during degradation, the XPS results of Ce(IO3)4 and the control experiments confirmed that the dye degradation is a catalytic process. The reusability of it was also investigated in the degradation experiments.