Morphological tuning of hydrothermally derived visible light active Cu2SnS3 nanostructures and their applications in photocatalytic degradation of reactive industrial dyes

In the present study we report the synthesis of Cu2SnS3 (CTS) nanostructures employing a facile, economical, eco-friendly and template-free hydrothermal process. The influence of different sulfur precursor sources on the growth and properties of CTS nanostructures was studied under optimized reaction conditions. Different morphologies including nano-pins, nano-sheets and nano-polygons were obtained by changing the sulfur sources. Surface area analysis showed that the nano-pins are mesoporous with a pore size of 4 nm and a large surface area of 146.58 m2/g. The photocatalytic performance of the CTS nano-pins was investigated against some harmful industrial dyes like Rhodamine B (RhB) and methyl orange (MO) as well as against the mixture of these dyes (RhB + MO). These CTS nano-pins, which were grown using l-cysteine, were found to show excellent photocatalytic activity against both RhB and MO, degrading 92% of the Rhodamine B dye in 180 min. The high photocatalytic degradation of the dyes can be correlated with the large surface area of the nano-pins.