Abstract
A series of silica-based nanocomposites have been synthesised by an impregnation and co-impregnation method, namely, 20 wt% Ti-SiO
2
, 20 wt% Ce-SiO
2
, 20Ti-Ce-SiO
2
(10:10 wt/wt Ti:Ce), and 40Ti-Ce-SiO
2
(20:20 wt/wt Ti:Ce). The prepared photocatalysts have been characterised by XRD, S
BET
, FT-IR, FE-SEM, XPS and optical techniques. The activity of the prepared photo-catalysts was evaluated using Fuchsine acid dye under UV and visible exposure. The degradation percentage and apparent first-order kinetics were calculated. The photo-degradation of the nano-composites was reached 62%, 84.8%, 79% and 73% for Ti-SiO
2
, Ce-SiO
2
, 20Ce-Ti-SiO
2
and 40Ce-Ti-SiO
2
after 180 min under visible irradiation. The scavenger's assessment analysis was carried out to know the vital role of responsive species which responsible for photoactivity. The Ce-SiO
2
exhibited an excellent photocatalytic activity of Fuchsine acid (FA) dye degradation under visible light. The photo-degradation rate (k) of the synthesised samples was 1.1 × 10
−2
min
−1
with R
2
of 0.98 for Ce-SiO
2
photo-catalyst. The results confirmed that the h
+
and O
2
*−
principally participate in the photodegradation of dye over Ce-SiO
2
nano-composite; however,
*
OH contributes in negligible extent.