Photocatalytic Degradation of Malachite Green Dye Using Zinc Sulfide Nanostructures

Abstract Zinc Sulfide (ZnS) get important attention as a semiconductor photocatalyst among other transition metal sulfides due to its fascinating and extraordinary properties. Here ZnS nanoparticles are synthesized by hydrothermal method using zinc acetate and sodium sulfide as precursors. The structural properties of ZnS was studied by using X‐Ray Diffraction technique (XRD).Exact fitting and crystal information of the sample was obtained from Rietveld refinement with Crystallographic Open Database (COD). It shows that ZnS follows cubic structure without any impurity peaks. Crystallite size and lattice strain values are calculated by using Williamson‐Hall (W−H) Plot method. As temperature increases, the particle size also going to increases due to atomic diffusion phenomena. Tauc plot indicates that the bandgap values decreases with increasing temperature. Accurate determination of bandgap values was analyzed by Boltzmann fitting using sigmoid function. Chemical states of elements were obtained with X‐ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS).Surface morphology and elemental analysis of ZnS nanoparticles was determined from Field Emission Scanning Electron Spectroscopy (FESEM) and Energy Dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Then the photocatalytic dye degradation efficiency of synthesized particles for Malachite Green (MG) dye was evaluated. From the studies it was found that ZnS is an efficient photocatalyst and it can be used as a perfect future material to avoid the water pollution.