Glycine-assisted hydrothermal synthesis of pure and europium doped CeO2 nanoparticles and their structural, optical, photoluminescence, photocatalytic and antibacterial properties

Pure and europium doped cerium dioxide (CeO2) nanoparticles were synthesized for the first time via glycineassisted hydrothermal process and comparatively investigated their structural, optical, photoluminescence, photocatalytic and antibacterial properties. The synthesized pure cerium dioxide (PCDO) and Eu3+ doped cerium dioxide (ECDO) samples were subjected to the powder XRD, W-H plot, TEM, EDX, XPS, UV–visible, PL, photocatalytic and antibacterial studies. Based on the above analysis, ECDO found relatively smaller size, higher band gap and oxygen vacancy defects, better photocatalytic degradation and antibacterial properties compared to the PCDO sample. Moreover, the ferromagnetism characteristics of the ECDO were found in the M− H loop.