Thiourea assisted hydrothermal synthesis of ZnS/CdS/Ag2S nanocatalysts for photocatalytic degradation of Congo red under direct sunlight illumination

Solar light active ternary ZnS/CdS/Ag2S nanocatalysts have been synthesized via a hydrothermal process. The crystal structure, optical, morphological and surface area of the catalyst are characterized by XRD, UV DRS, PL, FE-SEM and BET measurements. The ternary catalyst has a decreased band gap ener...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:RSC advances 2016-01, Vol.6 (5), p.4227-4236
Main Authors: Kalpana, Kalyanaraman, Selvaraj, Vaithilingam
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Catalysts
Degradation
Nanostructure
Photocatalysis
Semiconductors
Sunlight
Textiles
Zinc sulfides
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Summary:Solar light active ternary ZnS/CdS/Ag2S nanocatalysts have been synthesized via a hydrothermal process. The crystal structure, optical, morphological and surface area of the catalyst are characterized by XRD, UV DRS, PL, FE-SEM and BET measurements. The ternary catalyst has a decreased band gap energy value compared to that of the ZnS semiconductor. The catalyst was scrutinized for its catalytic performance under direct sunlight towards the degradation of a textile dye - Congo red at different time intervals. The results confirm that the Ag2S incorporated ternary ZnS/CdS/Ag2S nanocatalyst has good photocatalytic performance under direct sunlight when compared to binary and mono semiconductor systems.
ISSN:2046-2069
DOI:10.1039/c5ra16242d