Surfactant-assisted synthesis of highly dispersed ZnS(C)/BiOBr/GO ternary composites for effectively improve the degradation ability of organic pollutants under visible light

In this paper, the highly dispersed ZnS(C)/BiOBr/ GO ternary composite was prepared by a two-step hydrothermal method with the help of the surfactant cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB). Its structure and morphology were studied by XRD, SEM, TEM, EDX spectra, UV-VIS absorption spectra, Mott-Schottky curve and Brunau-Emmett-Teller (BET) characterization. The results show that the ZnS (C)/BiOBr/GO ternary photocatalyst with excellent degradation effect and stable specific surface area has been successfully prepared. Orthogonal and photocatalytic experiments showed that the prepared photocatalyst had high photocatalytic performance for the degradation of brilliant blue (BB), Rhodamine B (RhB) and tetracycline hydrochloride (TCH). The degradation rate constants for BB, TCH and RhB were 0.12515, 0.06194 and 0.76750 min-1, respectively. Moreover, the photocatalytic perfor-mance of ZnS(C)/BiOBr/GO composite is significantly better than that of the original ZnS(C) and BiOBr. It is worth noting that ZnS(C)/BiOBr/GO ternary composite assisted by CTAB has the best photocatalytic activity, mainly for two reasons. First, the presence of surfactant CTAB significantly reduces the agglom-eration of ZnS and enhances the dispersion of ZnS. Second, GO can be used as an electron trapping agent between ZnS and BiOBr to promote carrier separation. Therefore, the synthesis of ternary compounds with appropriate additional surfactants can effectively improve the photocatalytic efficiency of the degra-dation of organic pollutants. This study is expected to expand the application of surfactants in the prepa-ration of semiconductor photocatalysts. (c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The highly dispersed ZnS(C)/BiOBr/GO ternary composite was successfully prepared by a two-step hydrothermal method with the assistance of the surfactant CTAB. The photocatalyst exhibited excellent degradation performance for organic dyes and antibiotics, outperforming the individual ZnS(C) and BiOBr photocatalysts. The enhanced photocatalytic activity can be attributed to the reduced aggregation of ZnS and improved dispersion of ZnS by CTAB, as well as the electron trapping effect of GO for carrier separation between ZnS and BiOBr.