Abstract
This work reports the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye using SnS2 and SnO2 nanoparticles obtained from a solvothermal decomposition (in oleylamine) and pyrolysis (in a furnace) processes, respectively, of the diphenyltin(IV) p-methylphenyldithiocarbamate complex. The complex, which was used as a single-source precursor and represented as [(C6H5)2Sn(L)2] (L = p-methylphenyldithiocarbamato), was synthesized and characterized using various spectroscopic techniques and elemental analysis. The structural properties and morphology of the as-synthesized nanoparticles were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). UV-visible spectroscopy was used to study the optical property. The hexagonal phase of SnS2 and tetragonal SnO2 nanoparticles were identified, which exhibited varying sizes of hexagonal platelets and rod-like morphologies, respectively. The direct band gap energies of both materials, estimated from their absorption spectra, were 2.31 and 3.79 eV for SnS2 and SnO2, respectively. The photocatalytic performances of the SnS2 and SnO2 nanoparticle, studied using methylene blue (MB) as a model dye pollutant under light irradiation, showed that SnO2 nanoparticles exhibited a degradation efficiency of 48.33% after 120 min reaction, while the SnS2 nanoparticles showed an efficiency of 62.42% after the same duration of time. The higher efficiency of SnS2 compared to the SnO2 nanoparticles may be attributed to the difference in the structural properties, morphology and nature of the material’s band gap energy.
Highlights
The continuous environmental pollution by different dyes released from different human and industrial activities has stimulated the need for sustained fundamental and applied research in the area of environmental remediation [1]
H5)2SnL2]amines are generally less stable compared to those obtained from secondary amines due to the presence of the acidic hydrogen on the nitrogen [38,42]
Related studies have shown that these semiconductors exhibited no appreciable catalytic decomposition of dye molecules in the dark phase, often used as a control experiment [7,67]. These studies confirmed that photocatalytic reactions rarely proceed in the absence of light, even in different organic dyes and semiconductor materials [7]
Summary
The continuous environmental pollution by different dyes released from different human and industrial activities has stimulated the need for sustained fundamental and applied research in the area of environmental remediation [1]. Its increased usage in the textile industries and potential health hazards have necessitated the need to devise a way to remove it from waste water before being reused. It causes increased heart rate, vomiting and tissue necrosis in humans [4,6]. Chemical and biological techniques have been developed for the removal of these pollutants and the alleviation of their negative impact on the environment [7]. Most of these techniques are impeded by high energy
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