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Facile and scalable production of heterostructured ZnS-ZnO/Graphene nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation

A facile and eco-friendly strategy is described for the synthesis of ZnS-ZnO/graphene heterostructured nano-photocatalysts for the first time. This solvent-free and technologically scalable method involves solid-state mixing of graphite oxide (GO), Zn salt and surfeit yet non-toxic elemental sulfur...

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Autores principales: Lonkar, Sunil P., Pillai, Vishnu V., Alhassan, Saeed M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128855/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30194393
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31539-7
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author Lonkar, Sunil P.
Pillai, Vishnu V.
Alhassan, Saeed M.
author_facet Lonkar, Sunil P.
Pillai, Vishnu V.
Alhassan, Saeed M.
author_sort Lonkar, Sunil P.
collection PubMed
description A facile and eco-friendly strategy is described for the synthesis of ZnS-ZnO/graphene heterostructured nano-photocatalysts for the first time. This solvent-free and technologically scalable method involves solid-state mixing of graphite oxide (GO), Zn salt and surfeit yet non-toxic elemental sulfur using ball-milling followed by thermal annealing. The as-formed hybrids are composed of uniformly distributed in-situ formed ZnS-ZnO nanoparticles simultaneously within the thermally reduced GO (graphene) matrix. A series of hybrid compositions with varying content of ZnS/ZnO and graphene were prepared and thoroughly characterized. Further, the effect of heterostructure composition on the photocatalytic properties was investigated under visible-light illumination. The synergistic ZnS-ZnO/graphene hybridization promoted the band-gap narrowing compared to the pristine ZnS nanoparticles. The ZnS:ZnO composition was controlled by graphite oxide under thermal treatment and observed to be a crucial factor in enhancement of photocatalytic activity. As a proof of concept, the phase optimized and surface enhanced ZnS-ZnO/graphene nano-photocatalysts was tested towards visible light driven photocatalytic degradation of environmentally harmful organic dyes and toxic phenol molecules from aqueous media. The presented cost-effective strategy provides high potential in large-scale production of heterostructured nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation and photocatalytic greener production of hydrogen.
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spelling pubmed-61288552018-09-10 Facile and scalable production of heterostructured ZnS-ZnO/Graphene nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation Lonkar, Sunil P. Pillai, Vishnu V. Alhassan, Saeed M. Sci Rep Article A facile and eco-friendly strategy is described for the synthesis of ZnS-ZnO/graphene heterostructured nano-photocatalysts for the first time. This solvent-free and technologically scalable method involves solid-state mixing of graphite oxide (GO), Zn salt and surfeit yet non-toxic elemental sulfur using ball-milling followed by thermal annealing. The as-formed hybrids are composed of uniformly distributed in-situ formed ZnS-ZnO nanoparticles simultaneously within the thermally reduced GO (graphene) matrix. A series of hybrid compositions with varying content of ZnS/ZnO and graphene were prepared and thoroughly characterized. Further, the effect of heterostructure composition on the photocatalytic properties was investigated under visible-light illumination. The synergistic ZnS-ZnO/graphene hybridization promoted the band-gap narrowing compared to the pristine ZnS nanoparticles. The ZnS:ZnO composition was controlled by graphite oxide under thermal treatment and observed to be a crucial factor in enhancement of photocatalytic activity. As a proof of concept, the phase optimized and surface enhanced ZnS-ZnO/graphene nano-photocatalysts was tested towards visible light driven photocatalytic degradation of environmentally harmful organic dyes and toxic phenol molecules from aqueous media. The presented cost-effective strategy provides high potential in large-scale production of heterostructured nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation and photocatalytic greener production of hydrogen. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-09-07 /pmc/articles/PMC6128855/ /pubmed/30194393 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31539-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Lonkar, Sunil P.
Pillai, Vishnu V.
Alhassan, Saeed M.
Facile and scalable production of heterostructured ZnS-ZnO/Graphene nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation
title Facile and scalable production of heterostructured ZnS-ZnO/Graphene nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation
title_full Facile and scalable production of heterostructured ZnS-ZnO/Graphene nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation
title_fullStr Facile and scalable production of heterostructured ZnS-ZnO/Graphene nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation
title_full_unstemmed Facile and scalable production of heterostructured ZnS-ZnO/Graphene nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation
title_short Facile and scalable production of heterostructured ZnS-ZnO/Graphene nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation
title_sort facile and scalable production of heterostructured zns-zno/graphene nano-photocatalysts for environmental remediation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128855/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30194393
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31539-7
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