Highly efficient sunlight-driven photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants and fluorescence detection of Hg2+ using multifunctional GO-Bi2S3 nanostructures

Bismuth sulfide nanostructures (Bi2S3 NSs) as a photocatalyst and a fluorescence based sensor was successfully synthesized by the simple sonochemical process, which involves the graphite oxide (GO) as a capping agent. The optical, structural and morphology properties of the synthesized products were analyzed by XRD, SEM, TEM, FUR, Raman, TGA, BET, fluorescence, and UV-vis DRS. TEM observations revealed that the prepared Bi2S3 NSs were assembled from nanoflakes of about 200 nm in length and 10-40 nm in diameter. The GO-Bi2S3 NSs exhibited a better photocatalytic performance than in the absence of GO and as well as Bi2S3 NSs alone, for the photocatalytic degradation of MB, MR, CV, and RhB dyes under natural sunlight irradiation. The enhanced photocatalytic performance could be ascribed in the presence of GO-Bi2S3 NSs than the bare Bi2S3 NSs due to the GO incorporated with Bi2S3 NSs. The obtained Bi2S3 NSs were used as a sensing probe for the detection of heavy metal ions such as Hg2+ by the fluorometric analysis. This study offers a new kind of fluorometric sensor and sunlight active photocatalyst which is applicable for the degradation of a wide variety of dyes. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.