Which is better, TiO2 or CeO2?

That is the wrong question, each serves a different purpose. Though not always. Ing. Mazanec of the Military Research Institute in Brno compared different types of the decontamination agents used by NATO armies alongside TiO2 and CeO2 prepared at the Faculty of Environment (FŽP) in Ústí nad Labem and at the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (IIC) in Řež. The results were very interesting, but cannot be shared in full as they are classified. Therefore, we can only give the following summary: In a comparison of several categories, either cerium dioxide from Ústí nad Labem or titanium dioxide from Řež came in as best or second best. Other decontamination agents performed worse. These include the well known FAST-ACT, whose producer Nanoscale gained considerable public and private funding for its development. TiO2 and CeO2 are the results of joint research by FŽP and IIC, and it was only a matter of time before the properties of both oxides were combined. The result is a multifunctional material which decomposes various chemical weapons and other harmful substances through different mechanisms. The synthesis and properties are described in an article which is published in the June issue of the Chemical Engineering Journal.

J. Henych, M. Štastný, Z. Němcová, K. Mazanec, J. Tolasz, M. Kormunda, J. Ederer, P. Janoš, Bifunctional TiO2/CeO2 reactive adsorbent/photocatalyst for degradation of bis-p-nitrophenyl phophate and CWAs. Chem. Eng. J. 414 (2021) 128822.

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1385894721004174