Hydrangea-like ZnS/ZnIn2S4 microspheres with outstanding photocatalytic degradation of xylenol orange and thymol blue under vis irradiation

By hydrothermal reaction, the hydrangea-like ZnS/ZnIn 2 S 4 microspheres were prepared in the presence of thioacetamide. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy confirmed that the ultra-long nanowires are composed of ZnS and ZnIn 2 S 4 . Scanning electron microscopy showed the morphology of ultra-thin nanosheets with an average thickness of 8.5 nm cross from inside to outside, forming ZnS/ZnIn 2 S 4 microspheres with a porous diameter of about 2.8 μm. Nitrogen adsorption desorption isotherm determined that the BET specific surface area of the microspheres was 109.19 m 2 /g which showed that they have a large specific surface area. The obtained ZnS/ZnIn 2 S 4 microspheres showed broad absorbance ranging from UV (200 nm) to visible (520 nm) with low indirect band gaps of 2.08 eV. It leads to outstanding visible-light-driven photocatalysis for the degradation of xylenol orange (XO) and thymol blue (TB) in water, and the two dyes were almost completely degraded after 60 and 135 min, respectively. This provides new potential to explore nanomaterials for efficient photo-driven degradation of organic dyes under visible light irradiation.