Novel in-situ radiation construction of thioglycollic acid capped CdS quantum dots functionalized g-C3N4 nanohybrids with superior photocatalytic activity under visible light

Abstract

Abstract: A novel type of thioglycollic acid (TGA) capped CdS QDs functionalized g-C3N4 nanohybrids was prepared successfully by in-situ electron beam radiation at room temperature. When the radiation dose was chosen to be 10 kGy, the concentration of CdCl2 was 0.5 mmol/L and the optimum ratio of TGA to CdCl2 was 3 : 1 at pH = 9.0, the TGA-CdS QDs/g-C3N4 nanohydrids had the highest degradation rate at the modified TGA-CdS QDs content of 3.0 wt % and the removal rate of TGA-CdS QDs/g-C3N4 on the dye of MO was reached 94.7% in less than 20 min. The introduction of TGA-CdS QDs was confirmed successfully by a series of morphologies and structures of characterization and analysis with UV–vis, FL, Inverted-FL, DRS, FTIR, XRD, XPS, FE-SEM and HR-TEM, etc. After the introduction of TGA-CdS QDs into the surfaces of g-C3N4, the recombination of photo-generated electron-hole pairs can be significantly reduced and the photocatalytic activity and photostability can be also improved. It is favorable to enhance the photocatalytic performance for the photo-generated holes are rapidly transferred to the solution and hindered the photo-corrosion of TGA-CdS QDs.