Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Applied Nanoscience https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-020-01472-1 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Synthesis and catalytic practicality of CeO 2 nanoparticle: an excellent heterogenous candidate for 4‑nitrophenol reduction Dadu Mal 1  · Aamna Balouch 1,2  · Sirajuddin 3  · Abdullah 1  · Ali Muhammad Mahar 1  · Abdul Hameed Pato 1  · Sagar Kumar 1  · Shanker Lal 1  · Aneel Kumar 1 Received: 1 March 2020 / Accepted: 30 May 2020 © King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology 2020 Abstract The present study is based on a synthesis of facile, cheaper, well homogenized and highly stable Cerium Oxide nanostruc- tures via chemical precipitation method. The synthesized nanoceria was subjected under diferent characterization tools. The UV–visible and FTIR study profle initially confrm the formation and existing functionalities in nanoceria. The XRD, SEM techniques were exploited the crystalline and untwined combined form rhombohedron shaped CeO 2 nanoparticles respectively. While zeta sizer measurements explained well arranged, mono-dispersity, size and charge over the surface of nanoceria, which was calculated to be 17 nm with a desirable charge of + 6.37 mV. Finally, the well-prepared nanoceria nanoparticles were successfully applied as efective heterogeneous catalyst for 4-nitrophenol reduction. Under optimized conditions the nanoceria exhibited enhanced activity for 99% reduction of 4-NP within 60 s reaction time under greener microwave irradiation. Keywords Cerium oxide · Chemical precipitation · 4-nitrophenol Introduction Currently, cerium has been paid great attention to the researchers due to its appreciated applications in engineering and technology. Furthermore, Cerium is very reactive with atmospheric oxygen and readily form a metal oxide with varying composition and known as ceria. In bulk, Cerium oxide has two form having diferent oxidation states (CeO 2 and Ce 2 O 3 ) (Tsai et al. 2008). It is the only rare earth ele- ment which shows stable tetravalent oxidation state unlike other members of lanthanide series mainly exist in triva- lent oxidation state (Dao et al. 2011). Numerous methods have been attempted for the synthesis of cerium oxide NPs including precipitation (Pelletier et al. 2010), hydrothermal (Rojas et al. 2012; Alhaji et al. 2019), solvothermal (Zhang et al. 2011,2018), ball milling (Yadav and Srivastava 2012), thermal decomposition (Wang et al. 2002), spray pyrolysis (Demokritou et al. 2013), thermal hydrolysis (Hirano et al. 2000), and sol–gel methods (He et al. 2012; Darroudi et al. 2014a,b). Amongst all co-precipitation is most satisfactory, economical, simple and widely used at laboratory scale level (Farahmandjou et al. 2016).Cerium oxide NPs are widely applied for the treatment of several organic pollutants from the environment and aqueous system also (Li et al. 2018). Additionally, it is used for oxygen sensing (Zhao et al. 2017), pharmacological agent (Celardo et al. 2011), dye degrada- tion (Li et al. 2018), medicines (Shcherbakov et al. 2020), catalysis (Pato et al. 2019; Mahar et al. 2020), fuel oxidation catalysis (Jung et al. 2005), and automotive exhaust treat- ment (Campbell and Peden 2005). Currently, water pollu- tion is caused by various nitroarenes compounds due to vast usage in diferent industries such as pesticides, explosives and dyes (Zhang et al. 2018). The conversion of nitroarenes into anilines received much signifcance because of wide applications in numerous pharmaceutical and dyestuf prod- ucts (Budanov et al. 2010). Industrial and agricultural activi- ties nitro-phenolic compounds found to be a major pollutant * Aamna Balouch aamna_balouch@yahoo.com 1 National Centre of Excellence in Analytical Chemistry, University of Sindh, Jamshoro 76080, Pakistan 2 Department of Physics Engineering, Faculty of Science and Letters, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, 34469 Istanbul, Turkey 3 International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences, HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, University of Karachi, Karachi 75270, Pakistan