Preparation of flower-like CuS by solvothermal method for photocatalytic, UV protection and EMI shielding applications

The flower-like CuS hierarchical structures were synthesized by solvothermal method. The as-prepared products were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared(FTIR) spectroscopy, UV–vis optical absorption spectroscopy and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results demonstrated that the as-prepared flower-like CuS with the diameter of 1–5 um was pure hexagonal phase CuS and had well-defined flower-like structures. (1) The as-prepared CuS was proved to possess high photocatalytic performance with band gap of 1.45 eV. The degradation rate of Methylene blue (MB) was up to, 98.26%, 100% after 30 min under UV and visible irradiation. (2)The UPF of cotton fabric treated with CuS reached up to 174 compared with the original untreated fabric with the UPF 20.62. (3) The electromagnetic interference shielding effectiveness (EMI SE) of CuS coating was up to 27–31 dB when the content of CuS increased to 28.6%wt in the frequency of 300 KHz–3 GHz. Furthermore, the influence of reaction conditions on the morphology of the as-prepared CuS was investigated systematically and the possible formation mechanism of the CuS hierarchical structure was also proposed.