Facile synthesis of reduced graphene oxide/CdS nanowire composite aerogel with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activity

Developing a high-efficient, low-cost visible-light-responsive photocatalyst is still a challenge in environmental remediation. Here, a three-dimensional (3D) porous architecture named reduced graphene oxide/CdS nanowire (RGO/CdS) aerogel was constructed by a facile two-step approach through coupling graphene with one-dimensional CdS nanowires (CdS NWs). A variety of characterization methods displayed that the resultant RGO/CdS aerogels were embedded with large amounts of CdS NWs with an average length and width of similar to 2.9 mu m and similar to 60 nm, respectively, which would maximize the specific surface area that in turn markedly facilitate the transportation of photogenerated charge carriers and strong adsorption of organic pollutants. Moreover, the visible-light photocatalytic experiments demonstrated that the RGO/CdS aerogel exhibited a higher degradation rate (96.6%) for methylene blue (MB) degradation compared with that of bare CdS NWs or pure RGO xerogel. In this proposed study, a photocatalytic mechanism indicates that the enhanced photocatalytic activity of the 3D framework might contribute potentially to generate synergetic effect of CdS NWs into the space of graphene sheets.