Proficient route in synthesis of glucose stabilized Ag modified ZnS nanospheres for mechanistic understandings of commercially used dyes degradation

Abstract

• A facile, one step hydrothermal synthesis method was applied. • Glucose, a bio-molecule was used as a capping agent. • Enhanced sunlight driven photocatalytic dye degradation activity of Ag-ZnS nanospheres than that of ZnS nanospheres. • Charge transfer behavior of ZnS and Ag-ZnS photocatalysts at a low faradic process. • Environmental toxic dyes degradation using photo catalytic process without thermal hazards. The work reported here is based on the one-step facile hydrothermal synthesis of glucose stabilized pristine zinc sulfide (ZnS) nanospheres and silver (Ag) modified ZnS nanospheres. The cubic crystal structure with spherical morphology of as-synthesized nanospheres was confirmed from X-ray diffraction spectroscopy and Field emission scanning electron microscopy, respectively. Blue-shift of optical absorption maxima was studied through UV–Visible absorbance spectroscopy while defect-related emission properties were deduced from the photoluminescence spectroscopy. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic method were employed for elemental analysis and chemical composition study. Incorporation of Ag into ZnS to form Ag-ZnS nanospheres led to superior photocatalytic efficacy to the photocatalytic mineralization of both rhodamine-B (RhB) and methylene blue (MB) dyes after 120 min of solar irradiation. The respective pseudo-first-order degradation rate constants were 0.0163/min and 0.0225/min for the degradation of RhB and MB dyes, respectively.