Preparation and photocatalytic study of SiO2/CuS core-shell nanomaterial for degradation of methylene blue dye

In this work, core SiO2 –shell CuS nanostructures have beendeveloped using a simple wet chemical route. X-ray diffraction analysis XRD, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy DRS, scanning electron microscopy SEM, transmission electron microscopy TEM, EDS and fourier transform infrared FT-IR were used to characterize the products.The morphological studies revealed theuniformity in size distribution with core size of 250 nm andshell thickness of 7.5-17 nm. The structural studies indicate hexagonal structure of covellite CuS shell with no other trace for impurities in the crystalstructure. This CuS layer exhibit the band gap energy of3.1 eV, due to quantum confinement and numerousdefects presence.Photocatalytic activity of nanocomposites was studied for degradation of Methylene Blue MB under visible light. Several parameters were examined, catalyst amount 0.1–1 g L-1, pH 1–13 and initial concentration of MB 0.96–10 ppm. The extent of degradation was estimated from the residual concentration by spectrophotometrically.]]>