Abstract
Colloidal synthesis of photocatalysts with potential to overcome the drawback of low photocatalytic efficiency brought by charge recombination and narrow photo-response has been a challenge. Herein, a general and facile colloidal approach to synthesize orthorhombic phase Bi2S3 particles with rod and flower-like morphology is reported. We elucidate the formation and growth process mechanisms of these synthesized nanocrystals in detail and cooperate these Bi2S3 particles with metallic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) to construct heterostructured photocatalysts. The unique properties of AuNPs featuring tunable surface plasmon resonance and large field enhancement are used to sensitize the photocatalytic activity of the Bi2S3 semiconductor particles. The morphology, structure, elemental composition, and light absorption ability of the prepared catalysts are characterized by (high-resolution) transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and UV–vis absorption spectroscopy. The catalysts exhibit high and stable photocatalytic activity for the degradation of organic pollutants demonstrated using rhodamine B and methyl orange dyes under solar light irradiation. We show that the incorporation of the AuNPs with the Bi2S3 particles increases the photocatalytic activity 1.2 to 3-fold. Radical trapping analysis indicates that the production of hydroxyl and superoxide radicals are the dominant active species responsible for the photodegradation activity. The photocatalysts exhibit good stability and recyclability.
Highlights
There has been a rising research interest aimed at solving the current energy and environmental challenges
We report a facile one-pot method to synthesize rod and flower-like shaped Bi2S3 nanocrystals, which we abbreviate as BNR and BNF, respectively, utilizing 1-docanethiol (DDT) both as solvent and sulfur source (Figure 1), making our synthetic approach green with low cost
The morphological changes in the as-prepared materials were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron microscopy (TEM) and High resolution TEM (HRTEM) techniques At 150 ◦C, the formation of rod-like Bi2S3 nanocrystals with 350–360 nm average length and 65–70 nm average diameter was initiated as revealed by TEM analysis (Figure 2a and Figure S1)
Summary
There has been a rising research interest aimed at solving the current energy and environmental challenges. The environmental pollution arising from pervasive commercial dyes has posed a great environmental problem [1,2]. The dye effluents from textile mills have been the largest discharge of dyes into the environment and confers an acute problem for municipal waste treatment facilities. A significant degradation of organic dye pollutant has not been achieved using technologies involving physical or biological treatments [3,4]. The radiative energy of the sun can be harvested through light absorption in semiconductors. Such semiconductors in particle form are good photocatalysts and present an alternative treatment modality to successfully oxidize notorious organic dye pollutants existing in wastewater
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