Cadmium Sulfide (CdS) preparation by High-Energy Ball Milling

Abstract

Cadmium sulfide (CdS) is a type II-VI semiconductor widely used as photosensitizer in various wide band-gap metal oxides and in visible-light photocatalyst for H 2 evolution, due to its satisfactory bandgap (2.4 eV) that matching with the average spectrum of sunlight [1]. Usually, this material has been obtained in the nanocrystalline form by chemical route (bath deposition), using some organic molecules as precursors (hydrazine, thiourea, thioacetamide, dimethylcadmium etc.); however, some reagents commonly used in this route are costly, toxic, flammable and carcinogen [2]. Thus, some alternative routes have been explored, one of them based on processing in solid state, is called mechanical milling (MM) [3,4], where cadmium (Cd) and sulphur (S) are used as precursors for the CdS synthesis. The source of the anion sulphide is S, which has the advantage that is non-toxic for the human body.

Structural, optical and dielectric studies of wurtzite-type CdS quantum dots green synthesised using Ocimum sanctum (Tulsi) leaf extract

“…There are a variety of physical and chemical methods employed to synthesise CdS nanoparticles (NPs) [3,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. However, chemical synthesis of nanoparticles generally produces toxic components which limit their biological applications [40].…”