Optical studies of capped CdSe nanoparticles and their photocatalytic activity for degradation of methylene blue dye

Abstract

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) and mercaptoethanol (ME)-capped CdSe nanoparticles (NPs) have been successfully prepared and systematic investigation on structural, optical and photocatalytic properties is presented. The intrinsic characteristics of resulting nanoparticles were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-visible and photoluminescence (PL) spectrophotometer. Cubic phase, nearly uniform size (∼10 nm) and spherical morphology of the synthesized nanoparticles were established through XRD and TEM analysis. Spectroscopic measurements exhibit that capping agent can effectively tune energy band structure. ME-capped CdSe NPs exhibit higher light emission efficiency as compared to PEG capping. Photocatalytic activity of CdSe nanoparticles on methylene blue (MB) dye, a significant enhancement was observed in the photodegradation efficiency. A maximum degradation of MB dye (73.5%) was obtained.