Effect of Chitosan on the Optical Properties of Facile Co-Precipitation Route-Prepared Silver Sulfide Nanoparticles

The research and investigation were carried out to reveal the structural, functional, optical and morphological studies of pure and chitosan-incorporated Ag2S nanocomposites. The nanocomposite synthesis of Silver Sulfide - Chitosan was prepared via a facile co-precipitation route. X-ray diffraction (XRD) elucidates the structural and phase purity of the pure and Ag2S-chitosan nanocomposite. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) investigated the functional groups and different vibrational modes of the pure and Ag2S-chitosan nanocomposite. The absorption coefficient and cut-off wavelength of Ag2S and various percentages of Ag2S chitosan nanocomposites are determined by UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-DRS), and the optical bandgap value of the composite materials was determined using Kubelka-Munk plot. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDAX) were utilized to study the morphological properties and elemental mapping of the prepared pure and Ag2S-chitosan nanocomposites. The mapping shows that the elements Ag and S were uniformly distributed throughout the specimen. The results show the potentiality of the prepared samples for photocatalytic applications.