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Visible light-motivated photo-catalytic activity of CdS–Cu9S5 heterostructure for degradation of methylene blue

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Abstract

The release of wastewater and toxic organic pollutants originated from different industries into the water bodies is a subject of extensive concern. Heterostructured semiconductors as photo-catalysts are peculiar system that indicates outstanding adsorption towards organic pollutants for the environmental disinfection. In present work, we have synthesized CdS–Cu9S5 metal sulphide heterostructure using simple and economical one pot solvothermal approach. Crystal phase, purity, chemical composition, and surface morphology of as-synthesized CdS–Cu9S5 nanoparticles are examined using different analytical techniques, such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), UV–Vis (UV), and photoluminescence (PL), etc. Structural analysis indicated that as-synthesized CdS–Cu9S5 nanoparticles are composed of cubic CdS and rhombohedral structured Cu9S5. FESEM analysis reveals that pure CdS has irregular shaped nanoparticles but morphology get considerably altered for CdS–Cu9S5 sample. In comparison of pure CdS and Cu9S5, CdS–Cu9S5 nanoparticles exhibit the higher photo-catalytic degradation rate, where approximately complete degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye is attained under visible light irradiation. This degradation reaction depicts pseudo first order kinetics, and furthermore, the effect of several parameters such as pH, catalyst amount, dye concentration and the role of active species on the degradation kinetics are also evaluated.

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Acknowledgements

Authors acknowledge the support of the Director, NIT Kurukshetra. The authors also express thanks to Sachin Kumar for helping in FESEM and XPS characterization facility. One of the authors (Jaya Khatter) is thankful to IUAC, New Delhi, India for providing fellowship.

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  1. Department of Physics, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, 136119, India

    Jaya Khatter & R. P. Chauhan

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  1. Jaya Khatter
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  2. R. P. Chauhan
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Correspondence to R. P. Chauhan.

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Khatter, J., Chauhan, R.P. Visible light-motivated photo-catalytic activity of CdS–Cu9S5 heterostructure for degradation of methylene blue. Appl Nanosci 12, 1683–1696 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13204-022-02357-1

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