Surfactant free fabrication of copper sulphide (CuS–Cu 2 S) nanoparticles from single source precursor for photocatalytic applications

Abstract

A simple, ethylene glycol chemical reduction method was employed to synthesize CuSCu 2 S nanoparticles from single source copper thiourea complex for removal of persistent organic dyes. Fabricated CuS-Cu 2 S nanoparticles were characterized by powder XRD (PXRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Photocatalytic behaviour of CuS-Cu 2 S nanoparticles was evaluated under direct sunlight for degradation of methylene blue, malachite green, methyl orange, methyl violet and rhodamine B with the help of UV-vis spectroscopy. ª 2015 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Enhanced Photocatalytic Degradation of Ternary Dyes by Copper Sulfide Nanoparticles

“…The use of copper sulfide nanoparticles as an efficient catalyst has received attention catalyst for dye degradation due to its low bandgap energy that enables it to absorb light through a wide spectrum [ 8 ]. CuS exists in different crystalline phases such as CuS (covellite), Cu 7 S 4 -CuS (hexagonal plates), Cu 1.75 S (anilite), Cu 2 S (chalcocite), Cu 9 S 5 (digenite octahedron) [ 9 ]. CuS in the covellite crystalline phase has a direct bandgap of 1.2–2.0 eV due to its low and high reflectance in the visible and near-infrared regions [ 10 ], which makes it a good semiconductor for solar cell applications [ 11 ], biosensors [ 12 ], gas sensors [ 13 ], energy storage [ 14 ], and photocatalysis [ 15 ].…”

“…Copper sulfide is being explored as a photocatalyst because it is environmentally friendly, cheap, non-toxic, easy to regenerate, biocompatible, great chemical stability, unique optical and electrical properties, enhancing its effectiveness for the removal of dyes from wastewater [ 9 , 16 , 17 ]. Isac et al [ 18 ] reported 84% degradation of methylene blue after 4 h under visible light by CuS.…”

Crystal structure of bis[μ-N-(η2-prop-2-en-1-yl)piperidine-1-carbothioamide-κ2 S:S]bis[(thiocyanato-κN)copper(I)]

“…Thiourea and its derivatives, N-substituted thiourea and N, N 0disubstituted thiourea, are well-known ligands to copper ions, such as for their structural relatedness of proteins in bioinorganic chemistry and controlling redox potentials of copper ions in electrochemistry. Recently, copper-thiourea complexes [Cu(tu)s] have been investigated as electronic materials, for precursors of copper sulfide to be applied as semiconductors (Shamraiz et al, 2017;Sarma et al, 2019;Patel et al, 2019), photocatalysts (Tran et al, 2012;Pal et al, 2015), and sensors (Liu & Xue, 2011;Sabah et al, 2016;Sagade & Sharma, 2008). Cu(tu)s have also been used as a component of the precursor ink for forming CuIn(S, Se) as photo-absorbing layers in solar cells (Uhl et al, 2016).…”

Construction of High‐Nuclear CuxSy Nanocrystalline Catalyst from High‐Nuclear Copper Cluster

“…Within this family, copper sulfide with different phases (CuS, Cu 2 S, Cu 7 S 4 , Cu 9 S 5 , etc.) have been synthesized,, exhibiting good performance in many areas, such as catalysis, sensors, energy storage, and so on ,. However, much attention has been focused on the low‐nuclear copper sulfide, whereas the properties, as well as the synthetic method toward the high‐nuclear copper sulfide, have received less attention ,.…”