Facile microwave-assisted aqueous synthesis of CdS nanocrystals with their photocatalytic activities under visible lighting

Abstract Three kinds of CdS nanostructures, that is, hexagonal nanospheres (CdS-1), hierarchical caterpillar-fungus-like hexagonal nanorods (CdS-2) and hierarchical cubic microspheres (CdS-3), were controllably synthesized by a facile and one-pot microwave-assisted aqueous chemical method using ethanediamine as a phase and morphology controlling reagent. The as-prepared products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS) and photoluminescence (PL) spectra. The results show that CdS-1 is mainly composed of monodispersed hexagonal nanospheres with average diameters of about 100 nm; hexagonal CdS-2 has lengths in the range of 600–800 nm and diameters of 40–60 nm, assembled by nanoparticles about 20 nm in diameter; and CdS-3 is pure cubic microspheres with diameters in the range of 0.8–1.3 μm, aggregated by tiny nanograins with size of 5.8 nm. The band gap energies of CdS products were calculated to be 2.30, 2.31 and 2.24 eV observed from UV–vis DRS for CdS-1, CdS-2 and CdS-3, respectively. PL spectra of CdS samples showed that sphalerite CdS-3 possesses a very weak fluorescence, while wurtzite CdS-2 has a strongest green near-band edge emission (NBE) at 550 nm. The visible light photodegradation of methylene blue and rhodamine B in the presence of CdS photocatalysts illustrates that all of them display high photocatalytic activities. Significantly, the cubic CdS-3 exhibits more excellent photocatalytic behavior in degradation of organic dyes than the other hexagonal CdS, which is closely related to the phase and morphology structure of cubic CdS.