Synthesis of CeO2 Porous Nanospheres with Tunable Pore and Particle Sizes and Their Adsorption to Methyl Orange

The catalytic performance of ceria oxide (CeO 2 ) was greatly influenced by the materials’ structure and surface area. In this paper, CeO 2 porous nanospheres (PNS) with tunable pore and sphere sizes were synthesized by a solvothermal method using diethylene glycol as reaction media. All the as-synthesized CeO 2 PNS presented good adsorption capacity for methyl orange, which makes them potential application in waste water treatment conveniently and economically. The control over the sphere and pore sizes of CeO 2 PNS was achieved by regulating the volume of water bubble in the reaction system, which supplied limited room for the assembling of preformed CeO 2 small nano-precursors.