Study on photocatalytic performance of cerium–graphene oxide–titanium dioxide composite film for formaldehyde removal

In order to degrade in-car formaldehyde gas, graphene oxide (GO), cerium (Ce), and TiO₂ were organically combined by one-step sol–gel method. Then the mixed collosol was coated onto the surface of inorganic glass substrates to form Ce-GO-TiO₂ composite film by way of immersion, coating, and calcinations. The morphology and crystal structure of as-prepared Ce-GO-TiO₂ film were studied by a series of detection techniques. The photocatalytic performance of this film was analyzed by the degradation effect of formaldehyde under simulated sunlight. The results showed that the Ce-GO-TiO₂ film had the inbuilt mesoporous structure in the lamellar stacking with particles. When the doping amount of Ce and GO were 0.4 and 0.2% (mass ratio), the composite film can improve effectively the response to the visible light and its degradation rate for low concentration of formaldehyde was up to 83.8% in simulated sunlight for 7 h, which could be attributed to the co-function of Ce and GO.