Nanoporous CuS with excellent photocatalytic property.

Wence Xu,Shengli Zhu,Xianjin Yang,Zhaoyang Li,Akihisa Inoue,Yanqin Liang,Zhenduo Cui

doi:10.1038/srep18125

Abstract

We present the rational synthesis of nanoporous CuS for the first time by chemical dealloying method. The morphologies of the CuS catalysts are controlled by the composition of the original amorphous alloys. Nanoporous Cu2S is firstly formed during the chemical dealloying process, and then the Cu2S transforms into CuS. The nanoporous CuS exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity for the degradation of the methylene blue (MB), methyl orange (MO) and rhodamine B (RhB). The excellent photocatalytic activity of the nanoporous CuS is mainly attributed to the large specific surface area, high adsorbing capacity of dyes and low recombination of the photo generated electrons and holes. In the photo degradation process, both chemical and photo generated hydroxyl radicals are generated. The hydroxyl radicals are favor in the oxidation of the dye molecules. The present modified dealloying method may be extended for the preparation of other porous metal sulfide nanostructures.

Highlights

We present the rational synthesis of nanoporous CuS for the first time by chemical dealloying method
As confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), the np-structure was identified with the pure CuS, indicating that the Ti-Cu amorphous alloy completely transformed into crystalline CuS
A novel nanoporous CuS (np-CuS) photocatlyst is synthesized by chemical dealloying TiCu amorphous alloy

Summary

Introduction

We present the rational synthesis of nanoporous CuS for the first time by chemical dealloying method. Metal sulfides have attracted extensive attention in the recent years Among these materials, copper chalcogenides exhibit unique optical, electronic, physical and chemical properties with prospective and numerous applications as both the photocatalysis and the Fenton-like reactant[7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. The degradation of organic dye molecules in the CuS introduced Fenton-like reactions can be proceed efficiently without the adjustment of pH value. In order to obtain efficient charge separation and transportation, many copper chalcogenide nanostructures, such as nanospheres, nanodisks, nanocrystals and nanowires were designed with short charge diffusion length, high crystallinity and less defects[15,16,17,18] Among these materials, porous nanostructure draws intensive interests because the nanoporous www.nature.com/scientificreports/. Nanoporous metal sulfides fabricated by dealloying method have not been reported before

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Results

Conclusion