Highly efficient and stable photocatalytic properties of CdS/FeS nanocomposites

• Published in: New journal of chemistry Vol. 44; no. 34; pp. 14695 - 1472
• Main Authors: Li, Yu, Chen, Shubin, Zhang, Kejie, Gu, Siwen, Cao, Jing, Xia, Yuan, Yang, Changgen, Sun, Wu, Zhou, Zhiping
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Royal Society of Chemistry 14.09.2020
• Subjects: Comparative studies; Degradation; Ion adsorption; Liquid phases; Nanocomposites; Photocatalysis; Photoelectric effect; Photoelectric emission; Pollutants; Rhodamine; Stability analysis; Thermal decomposition; Xenon lamps
• ISSN: 1144-0546; 1369-9261
• DOI: 10.1039/d0nj01424a

In this paper, three different molar ratios of CdS/FeS nanocomposites were successfully synthesized via a liquid-phase thermal decomposition of a single precursor and an ion adsorption method. A comparative study on the transient photocurrents using CdS/FeS (2 : 1, 5 : 1, and 8 : 1) nanocomposites under xenon lamp ( λ ≥ 400 nm) irradiation has been performed that found that the CdS/FeS (8 : 1) sample exhibited the highest photocurrent, which was 54 times that of the CdS/FeS (2 : 1) sample. Rhodamine B (RhB) was used as a model pollutant to evaluate the sample's photocatalytic efficiency and stability. RhB degradation efficiencies of CdS/FeS (2 : 1, 5 : 1, and 8 : 1) nanocomposites were 95.7%, 99.0% and 94.6%, respectively. Besides, after 5 repeated experiments under sunlight, the degradation efficiency of RhB was still around 97.4%, showing the good photocatalytic stability of the CdS/FeS (5 : 1) nanocomposite. CdS/FeS nanocomposites were successfully synthesized via a liquid-phase thermal decomposition of a single precursor and an ion adsorption method.