Novel Mesoporous and Multilayered Yb/N-Co-Doped CeO(2) with Enhanced Oxygen Storage Capacity

A cubic fluorite-type CeO(2) with mesoporous multilayered morphology was synthesized by the solvothermal method followed by calcination in air, and its oxygen storage capacity (OSC) was quantified by the amount of O(2) consumption per gram of CeO(2) based on hydrogen temperature programmed reduction (H(2)–TPR) measurements. Doping CeO(2) with ytterbium (Yb) and nitrogen (N) ions proved to be an effective route to improving its OSC in this work. The OSC of undoped CeO(2) was 0.115 mmol O(2)/g and reached as high as 0.222 mmol O(2)/g upon the addition of 5 mol.% Yb(NO(3))(3)∙5H(2)O, further enhanced to 0.274 mmol O(2)/g with the introduction of 20 mol.% triethanolamine. Both the introductions of Yb cations and N anions into the CeO(2) lattice were conducive to the formation of more non-stoichiometric oxygen vacancy (V(O)) defects and reducible–reoxidizable Ce(n+) ions. To determine the structure performance relationships, the partial least squares method was employed to construct two linear functions for the doping level vs. lattice parameter and [V(O)] vs. OSC/S(BET).