Hydrothermal synthesis of highly stable copper sulfide nanorods for efficient photo-thermal conversion

Copper sulfide (CuS) nanostructures have an important application prospect in the field of solar photothermal conversion because of their excellent photo-thermal stability. In this paper, nanostructured CuS nanorods were successfully prepared via hydrothermal reaction method. The crystal structure and surface morphology of the as-prepared CuS nanorods were characterized. The optical absorption and photo-thermal conversion performance of the CuS emulsions based on water were studied. The ultraviolet/visible/near infrared (UV/Vis/NIR) absorption spectra tests show that the prepared CuS emulsions have strong optical absorption in both visible light and near infrared light bands. And the photothermal conversion results indicate that the CuS emulsions possess good photo-thermal conversion performance, and the maximum temperature of the emulsion reaches about 74.44 degrees C with the mass fraction of 0.10%. Moreover, in a certain concentration range, the photo-thermal conversion performance will be effectively enhanced with increasing the mass fractions of the emulsions. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.