CTAB assisted hydrothermal synthesis, controlled conversion and CO oxidation properties of CeO2 nanoplates, nanotubes, and nanorods

In this work, CeO2 nanoplates were synthesized by a hydrothermal reaction assisted by hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) at 100–160 °C. The size of nanoplates was around 40 nm. Further experiment showed that the controlled conversion of nanoplates into nanotubes, and nanorods can be realized by changing the reaction time, temperature, and CTAB/Ce3+ ratio value. X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) nitrogen adsorption–desorption measurements were employed to characterize the samples. The CO oxidation properties of nanorods, nanoplates, and nanotubes were investigated. An enhanced catalytic activity has been found for CO oxidation by using CeO2 nanoplates as compared with CeO2 nanotubes and nanorods, and the crystal surfaces (100) of CeO2 nanoplates were considered to play an important role in determining their catalytic oxidation properties.