Sol-gel assisted hydrothermal synthesis and characterization of hybrid ZnS-RGO nanocomposite for efficient photodegradation of dyes

In the present work, assembly and fabrication of nano-sized Zinc Sulphide (ZnS) particles grown on Graphene Oxide (GO) by the facile sol-gel method treated with microwave irradiation and assisted by hydrothermal processing. The production of high quality and self-assembled ZnS-RGO hybrid nanocomposites without the use of any surfactants/templates are been reported. Synthesis, interaction, kinetics and mechanism of hybrid ZnS-RGO composite are been studied. The results show that the photodegradation efficiency of brilliant blue under UV light irradiation for hybrid nanocomposite was better than GO and ZnS are reported. The photocatalytic activity strongly depended on the coverage of ZnS nanoparticles on the surface of graphene oxide sheets and the synergic adsorptive interaction between ZnS and GO. The enhancements of photo-catalysts activity are attributed to high migration efficiency of photoinduced electrons and inhibited charge carrier's recombination due to electronic communication between ZnS and GO. The nanocomposite having large surface area and microporous in nature played a vital role in absorptive activity are confirmed by BET surface area measurement. In addition, photoluminescence spectra of nanohybrids of ZnS-RGO composites displayed the surface plasma resonance and fluorescence quenching property. XRD, FT-IR, Raman spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy, SEM with EDS, XPS, TEM and HR-TEM confirmed the structure and morphology of nanocomposite.