Popis: |
A novel ambient pressure microwave-assisted technique is developed in which silver and indium modified ZnS is synthesised. The as prepared ZnS is characterised by X-ray diffraction, UV-Vis spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and luminescence spectroscopy. This procedure produced crystalline materials with particle sizes below 10 nm. The synthesis technique leads to defects in the crystal which induce mid energy levels in the band gap and lead to indoor light photocatalytic activity. Increasing the amount of silver causes a phase transition from cubic blende to hexagonal phase ZnS. In a comparative study, when the ZnS cubic blende is heated in a conventional chamber furnace, it is completely converted to ZnO at 600 °C. Both cubic blende and hexagonal ZnS show excellent photocatalytic activity under irradiation from a 60 watt light bulb. These ZnS samples also show significantly higher photocatalytic activity compared to the commercially available TiO2 (Evonik-Degussa P-25). |