Fabrication of the carnation-like CCN-CuS p–n heterojunctions with enhanced photocatalytic performance under visible light irradiation

Carnation-like CuS nanoflowers were prepared by a mildly hydrothermal method without any surfactants or templates and further evolved into CCN-CuS p–n heterojunctions. And the as-prepared samples were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV–vis absorption spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), photoluminescence (PL) and the photocurrent response. The results show that the appropriate load content of CCN is conducive to form well-morphology CCN-CuS heterojunctions. And the formation of CCN-CuS p–n heterojunctions is both beneficial to achieve higher charge separation efficiency and promote its photocatalytic performance to RhB dye without the existence of H2O2, which is commonly used as the sources of hydroxyl radicals to assist photocatalytic process. Besides, the as-synthesized 5CCN-CuS NFs show good stability and no obvious inactivation occurred after five degradation cycles runs.