Fabrication of tantalum doped CdS nanoparticles for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of organic dye under visible light exposure

Abstract

Different amount (3, 5, 7 and 9 mol%) of the Tantalum (Ta) doped CdS nanoparticles have been synthesized by hydrothermal approach for the photocatalytic degradation of the organic pollutant removals. The physicochemical properties of the synthesized products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS), and photoluminescence (PL). The UV-DRS samples suggest that all the Ta-doped samples showed the redshift due to the lattice deformation in the CdS. The PL results indicate that the 7 mol % Ta-doped CdS shows the highly hindered charge carrier recombination, which can increase the charge carrier lifetime. The photocatalytic activity of as prepared photocatalyst was examined by monitoring the degradation of methylene blue under visible light irradiation for the time period of 120 min. The photocatalytic tests revealed that the 7 mol% of Ta-doped CdS nanoparticle exhibited much higher photocatalytic activity compared with pure, 3 and 5 mol% of Ta-doped CdS. The presence of Ta5+ generates electron and holes prolonged the recombination rate by introducing the temporary trapping sites, which essentially causes to improve the photocatalytic efficiency. Further, the experimental data were fitted well with the pseudo-first-order kinetic model. Therefore, the proposed Ta-doped CdS efficient photocatalyst applicable to future research.