Template free synthesis of CuS nanosheet-based hierarchical microspheres: an efficient natural light driven photocatalyst

Abstract

Well controlled nanosheets-based hierarchical microspheres (NSHMS) of pure covellite phase CuS were synthesized using a facile PVP assisted solvothermal process. The reaction conditions were optimized using various amounts of PVP to develop unique hierarchical structured hollow microspheres. CuS hollow structures have a bandgap of ~1.97 eV. These mesoporous structures exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity in degradation of organic dyes (Methylene Blue) under natural light in comparison to other structures of copper sulphide. These photocatalysts show extraordinary reusability with over 96.5% degradation of organic dye after 6th cycle. A "bottom-up" assembly was successfully developed to synthesize hollow microspheres with unique and well defined architectures at large scale, which offer a good opportunity to understand the fundamental significance of unusual and complex hierarchical structures for their potential applications. This journal is the Partner Organisations 2014.Keywords nanosheet, light, driven, cus, free, synthesis, hierarchical, photocatalyst, template, microspheres, efficient, natural Disciplines Engineering | Physical Sciences and Mathematics Publication DetailsTanveer, M., Cao, C., Ali, Z., Aslam, I., Idrees, F., Khan, W. S., But, F. K., Tahir, M. & Mahmood, N. (2014 Well controlled nanosheets-based hierarchical microspheres (NSHMS) of pure covellite phase CuS were synthesized using a facile PVP assisted solvothermal process. The reaction conditions were optimized using various amounts of PVP to develop unique hierarchical structured hollow microspheres. CuS hollow structures have a bandgap of~1.97 eV. These mesoporous structures exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity in degradation of organic dyes (Methylene Blue) under natural light in comparison to other structures of copper sulphide. These photocatalysts show extraordinary reusability with over 96.5% degradation of organic dye after 6th cycle. A "bottom-up" assembly was successfully developed to synthesize hollow microspheres with unique and well defined architectures at large scale, which offer a good opportunity to understand the fundamental significance of unusual and complex hierarchical structures for their potential applications.

Interconnected porous hollow CuS microspheres derived from metal-organic frameworks for efficient adsorption and electrochemical biosensing

“…The two peaks at 932.0 and 952.0 eV are assigned to Cu 2p 3/2 and Cu 2p 1/2 , respectively. The 20.0 eV difference between the binding energies of Cu 2p 3/2 and Cu 2p 1/2 and a small satellite between these two peaks are also characteristic of Cu(II) [50,51]. The high resolution XPS spectrum of S 2p shown in Fig.…”

Atypical BiOCl/Bi2S3 hetero-structures exhibiting remarkable photo-catalyst response

“…In recent years, many attentions have been paid toward the general approach for preparing unusual and complex structures for versatile applications through the sacrificial templates including hard and soft templates [16][17][18]. However, the atypical architectures fabricated from hard template and through two-step synthetic strategies mostly suffering from their high cost and tedious synthetic procedures [19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

CuS/MoS2 nanocomposite with high solar photocatalytic activity

“…The band gap plots of [ahm] 2 vs. hm as following equation for the Fig. 9b (Tanver et al 2014;Deng et al 2014).…”

“…Meanwhile, the VB of CuS is more negative than the standard redox potential OH -/ Á OH (2.7 eV vs. NHE), indicating that the generated holes in CuS cannot oxidize OH -or H 2 O to form Á OH so that the holes in the VB of CuS can directly oxidize the pollutants . As known, Á O 2 , OH -, and holes possess high oxidative capacities and are in favor of oxidizing organic contaminants (Tanver et al 2014).…”

“…Recently, nanostructured metal sulfide-based photocatalysts with different morphologies and sizes have attracted intense interest due to their ability to rapidly and efficiently remove a large number of organic pollutants in aqueous systems (Deng et al 2014;Tanver et al 2014;Wang et al 2014a). Among all, semiconducting copper sulfide (CuS) nanomaterials have gained extensive attentions due to their nontoxicity, good photosensitivity, and excellent physical and chemical stability, eco-friendly and economic (Mikyung and Kijung 2014;Goel et al 2013;Dang et al 2014).…”