Enhanced Visible-Light-Induced Photocatalytic Performance of g-C3N4/ZnS/CuS Ternary Composite for Environmental Remediation

Abstract

The inherent drawback of high photo-induced electron-hole pair recombination rate restricts the photocatalytic performances of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4).Here, in this work, g-C3N4/ZnS/CuS ternary nanocomposites with different CuS concentration were successfully fabricated by a hydrothermal process and subsequent followed by a cation exchange reaction. The as-synthesized samples were characterized by the techniques of XRD, SEM, DRS, FT-IR and PL. Characterization results show a much more efficient electron-hole pair separation rate of g-C3N4/ZnS/CuS, the g-C3N4/ZnS/CuS (8%) sample shows the best photocatalytic performance for degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB), which is about 1.6 times higher than that of g-C3N4/ZnS and 6.2 times higher than that of pure g-C3N4, respectively. The high photodegraded activity is attributed to the important role of ZnS and CuS acted as electron co-catalysts, which retard the fast recombination of photo-induced holes and electrons, resulting in higher photodegraded activity than pure g-C3N4.Our research work indicates that the heterostructured formation ofg-C3N4, ZnS and CuS is helpful for the fabrication of g-C3N4-based photocatalysts with enhanced visible light photoactivity.