Direct interfacial growth of Sr–CeO2 nanoparticles on carbon nanofibers and their multidisciplinary applications

Cerium oxide (CeO2) and carbon nanofibers (CNF) based material have been widely used for supercapcitor, optoelectronic as well and electrochemical sensor applications due to their interesting physicochemical properties. Present article reports the facile hydrothermal synthesis of Sr–CeO2/CNF electrode material under subcritical reaction conditions. Different analytical techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), UV–Visible spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used for the chractrization of nanocomposite. XRD and XPS results confirm the formation of Sr–CeO2/CNF having cubic fluorite structure. In addition, morphological studies shows formation of dot like morphology of Sr–CeO2 nanoparticals embedded on CNF nanorods. Surface area analysis indicated that synthesized material is mesoporous in nature and exhibited high surface area of 38.45 m2/g. The optical absorption concludes that the band gap values lies between 2.1 and 3.15 eV, suitable for optoelectronic applications. Moreover, the electrochemical study of 5 wt% Sr–CeO2/CNF exhibits substantial specific capacitance of 192 Fg-1 with 95.4% good cyclic stability at 5000 cycles. The composite electrode exhibit energy density and power density of 96 WhKg−1and 1440 WKg−1at 0.8 Ag-1 current density suggesting a good electrode material for supercapacitor. Finally, the nanocomposite was also studied for cyclic voltammetric electrochemical detection of Harmaline (HAR) showing good sensitivity with Limit of detection (LOD) and Limit of quantification (LOQ) of 0.82 μg mL−1 and 2.48 μg mL−1 respectively.