Visible light-driven photocatalytic rhodamine B degradation using CdS nanorods

Abstract

In this work, highly crystalline CdS nanorods (NRs) were successfully synthesized by a facile, one-step solvothermal method. The as-prepared CdS NRs powder was characterized by XRD, FESEM, Raman, PL, XPS, BET, and UV-visible techniques to evaluate the structural, morphological, and optical properties. The photocatalytic performance of the as-synthesized CdS NRs was investi-gated for the photodegradation of RhB dye under visible light irradiations. It has been found that CdS NRs show maximum RhB degradation efficiency of 88.4% in 120 min. The excellent photodeg-radation ability of the CdS NRs can be attributed to their rod-like structure together with their large surface area and surface state. The kinetic study indicated that the photodegradation process was best described by the pseudo-first-order kinetic model. The possible mechanism for the photodeg-radation of RhB dye over CdS NRs was proposed in this paper.