Photothermal-conversion-enhanced photocatalytic activity of flower-like CuS superparticles under solar light irradiation

Photocatalytic semiconductors have attracted much attention due to their effective harvesting of solar energy for chemical synthesis and wastewater treatment. In particular, 3D hierarchical CuS materials exhibit unique photocatalytic performance due to their distinctive optical properties and high specific surface areas. In the present work, a facile and template-free solvothermal method was applied to the synthesis of monodispersed and homogeneous 3D flower-like CuS superparticles. The prepared superparticles exhibit good photocatalytic properties for degrading organic pollutants (methylene blue) in water. Furthermore, the effect of photothermal conversion in enhancing the photocatalytic activity of this flower-like material was studied; this effect has not been considered in most of the previous work. The photodegradation rate was enhanced by ∼212.7% in the photothermal-assisted system. This result reveals that photothermal conversion in CuS particles plays an important role in engendering highly efficient photocatalytic activity and the efficient utilization of solar energy.