Publication:
Near-Infrared (NIR) Silver Sulfide (Ag2S) semiconductor photocatalyst film for degradation of methylene blue solution
Near-Infrared (NIR) Silver Sulfide (Ag2S) semiconductor photocatalyst film for degradation of methylene blue solution
Date
2023
Authors
Zahrah Ramadlan Mubarokah
Norsuria Mahmed
Mohd Natashah Norizan
Ili Salwani Mohamad
Mohd. Mustafa Al Bakri Abdullah
Katarzyna Błoch
Marcin Nabiałek
Madalina Simona Baltatu
Andrei Victor Sandu
Petrica Vizureanu
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Abstract
A silver sulfide (Ag2S) semiconductor photocatalyst film has been successfully synthesized using a solution casting method. To produce the photocatalyst films, two types of Ag2S powder were used: a commercialized and synthesized powder. For the commercialized powder (CF/comAg2S), the Ag2S underwent a rarefaction process to reduce its crystallite size from 52 nm to 10 nm, followed by incorporation into microcrystalline cellulose using a solution casting method under the presence of an alkaline/urea solution. A similar process was applied to the synthesized Ag2S powder (CF/syntAg2S), resulting from the co-precipitation process of silver nitrate (AgNO3) and thiourea. The prepared photocatalyst films and their photocatalytic efficiency were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis). The results showed that the incorporation of the Ag2S powder into the cellulose films could reduce the peak intensity of the oxygen-containing functional group, which indicated the formation of a composite film. The study of the crystal structure confirmed that all of the as-prepared samples featured a monoclinic acanthite Ag2S structure with space group P21/C. It was found that the degradation rate of the methylene blue dye reached 100% within 2 h under sunlight exposure when using CF/comAg2S and 98.6% for the CF/syntAg2S photocatalyst film, and only 48.1% for the bare Ag2S powder. For the non-exposure sunlight samples, the degradation rate of only 33–35% indicated the importance of the semiconductor near-infrared (NIR) Ag2S photocatalyst used.
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Keywords
Near-infrared irradiation,
Silver sulfide,
Cellulose film,
Photocatalysis,
Methylene blue