Preparation and its photocatalysis of Cd1−xZnxS nano-sized solid solution with PAMAM as a template

Cd1−xZnxS solid solution was prepared by coprecipitation method with PAMAM as a template, calcined at 573 K under N2 atmosphere and characterized by BET, XRD, UV–vis, HRTEM and XRF. The size of Cd1−xZnxS solid solution particles was about 5 nm and the bandgap was estimated to be 2.09–3.12 eV. The photocatalytic activities of Cd1−xZnxS solid solutions on degradation of rhodamine B were evaluated under visible-light irradiation. The results indicated that Cd0.59Zn0.22S solid solution exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity among all the as-prepared samples. The mechanism of photocatalysis under visible-light irradiation was also discussed.