Enhanced activity of ZnS(111) by N/Cu co-doping:Accelerated degradation of organic pollutants under visible light

High-efficiency photocatalysts are of great significance for the application of photocatalytic technology in water treatment.In this study,N/Cu co-doped ZnS nanosphere photocatalys(N/Cu-ZnS) is synthesized by a hydrothermal method for the first time.After doping,the tex ture of nanosphere becomes loose,the nanometer diameter is reduced,making the specific surface area of catalyst increased from 34.73 to 101.59 m2/g.The characterization results show that more ZnS (111) crystal planes are exposed by N/Cu co-doping;the calculations of density functional theory show that N/Cu co-doping can increase the catalytic activity of the ZnS (111) crystal plane,enhance the adsorption capacity of (111) crystal plane to O2and promote the generation of·O2-.The energy levels of the introduced impurities can be hybridized with the energy levels of S and Zn at the top of valence band and the bottom o conduction band,which makes the band gap narrower,thus enhancing the absorption o visible light.Compared with pure ZnS,the degradation rates of 2,4-dichlorophenol (2,4-DCP and tetracycline (TC) by N/Cu-ZnS under visible light (>420 nm) are increased by 83.7 and51 times,respectively.In this research,a promising photocatalyst for photocatalytic degra dation of organic pollutants in wastewater is provided.