Ordered mesoporous necklace-like ZnS on graphene for use as a high performance photocatalyst

A simple and effective approach was developed to prepare novel graphene/ordered mesoporous necklace-like ZnS nanocomposite (GR-ZnS). Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy observations confirmed that the as-formed necklace-like ZnS, about 50 nm in diameter and more than hundreds of nanometers in length, were distributed on graphene sheets. Each ZnS contained a lot of ordered mesopores. The photocatalytic experimental results indicated that this nanocomposite enhanced photocatalytic performance with 97.5% decomposition of methyl orange (MO) after 30 min under UV-light irradiation. This new nanocomposite is expected to show considerable potential applications in water purification.