Combustion synthesis of Zn1-xCdxS and its photodegradation performance of methylene blue

Zn1-xCdxS (x=0-1.0) powders were synthesized by a simple combustion method using cadmium nitrate, zinc nitrate and thiourea as raw materials. The structures, morphologies, absorbance, luminescence and photocatalytic properties of the samples were studied by X-ray powder diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry and photoluminescence. The results show that all Zn1-xCdxS samples exhibit hexagonal structure and no metastable cubic phase is obtained. With increasing content of Cd, red-shifts are observed in both the absorption edges of UV-vis absorption spectra and emission bands of photoluminescence spectra. Among all Zn1-xCdxS samples, CdS shows the best visible-light photocatalytic performance due to its narrow bandgap. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.