Heterostructures of Ag2FeSnS4 chalcogenide nanoparticles as potential photocatalysts
No Thumbnail Available
Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
Description
The synthesis of photocatalysts with a suitable bandgap that could speed up the rate of
oxidation of chemical effluent is of utmost importance to material chemists. It has been
observed that chalcogenide nanostructures research continues to dominate scientific
work over the last few years based on their exciting bandgap within the semiconductor
bandgap range. In this research work, novel class I2-II-IV-VI4 quaternary chalcogenides
nanoparticles were synthesised using co-precipitation by varying the reaction conditions
of temperature (200 °C and 250 °C) and, essentially, capping agents (citric acid and
glycerol) and the mole ratio of precursors. The resulting nanoparticles were purified and
vacuum dried to give a black crystalline solid. The Powder-X-ray Diffraction analysis of
the as-synthesised heterostructure chalcogenides showed novel pure phase materials
that exhibited the orthorhombic and cubic Ag2FeSnS4 crystal systems reminiscent of the
parent compounds Ag8SnS6 and AgSnS2 under different experimented reaction
conditions. The morphological characterisation of the HC chalcogenides by
Transmission Electron Microscope revealed that the nanomaterials formed were
predominantly nanocubes, with particle diameters ranging from 22.98 ± 1.67 to
57.26 ± 12.93 nm. Further elucidation of the optical property of the HC nanoparticles by
Tauc's plot based on the data derived from UV-Vis spectrophotometry measurement
revealed that the bandgap ranged from 1.58 to 1.99 eV. The FTIR absorption character
of the as-synthesised HC nanoparticles provided evidence for the surface
functionalisation, confirming the presence of moieties like the hydroxyl (O-H) at
3396.16 cm−1 and carbonyl group (C=O) at 1712.31 cm−1. At the same time, the UVVisible
spectrophotometry, measured over a range of 250 to 1000 nm, showed broad
absorbance between 420 and 800 nm, confirming the optical property of the
nanoparticles. The result showed that heterostructure chalcogenide nanoparticles would
have an excellent photocatalytic application.
Keywords
QD Chemistry