Abstract

In recent times, cost effective synthesis of semiconductor materials has been a subject of concern for the day to today applications. In this work, novelty has been made on the facile synthesis of metal oxides (TiO2 and CeO2) and nanocomposites (TiO2–CeO2) through sol-gel and precipitation methods of imparting lemon extract. The synthesized materials behave as the functional catalysts which has been further carried out for the photocatalytic degradation against 2,4-Dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP). The materials are then valued for the structural and optical properties. The lemon extract used in synthesis has played a premier role in upgrading the charge carrier separation, bandgap, and size reduction of the composite system. Further, the CeO2 supported TiO2 sample acts as the better visible light catalyst, due to the prevention of aggregation and existence of line dislocation that supported to access the additional electron trap sites.