Photocatalytic Degradation of Single and Binary Mixture of Brilliant Green and Rhodamine B Dyes by Zinc Sulfide Quantum Dots

Abstract

We present the preparation of octadecylamine-capped ZnS quantum dots from bis(morpholinyldithiocarbamato)Zn(II) complex. The complex was thermolyzed at 130 °C in octadecylamine at different times, to study the effect of reaction time on the morphological and photocatalytic properties of the ZnS quantum dots. Powder X-ray diffraction patterns confirmed a hexagonal wurtzite crystalline phase of ZnS, while HRTEM images showed particle sizes of about 1–3 nm, and energy band gaps of 3.68 eV (ZnS–1), 3.87 eV (ZnS–2), and 4.16 eV (ZnS–3) were obtained from the Tauc plot for the ZnS nanoparticles. The as-prepared ZnS were used as photocatalysts for the degradation of brilliant green, rhodamine B, and binary dye consisting of a mixture of brilliant green-rhodamine B. The highest photocatalytic degradation efficiency of 94% was obtained from ZnS–3 with low photoluminescence intensity. The effect of catalytic dosage and pH of the dyes solution on the photocatalytic process shows that pH 8 is optimal for the degradation of brilliant green, while pH 6.5 is the best for photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B. The degradation of the binary dyes followed the same trends. The effect of catalytic dosage shows that 1 mg mL−1 of the ZnS nano-photocatalyst is the optimum dosage for the degradation of organic dyes. Reusability studies show that the ZnS quantum dots can be reused five times without a significant reduction in degradation efficiency.