A Facile method to Prepare Monodispersed CdS/SiO2 Composite Microspheres and Investigation on Their Photocatalytic Properties

This article presents a facile method to prepare CdS/SiO 2 composite microspheres and their good catalytic properties. In our method, monodispersed SiO 2 particles bearing amino groups (–NH 2 ) were synthesized at first and then used as carriers to load nanosized CdS particles to form CdS/SiO 2 composite microspheres. With the addition of CdAc 2 solution to the SiO 2 dispersion, Cd 2+ was attracted to the surfaces of the SiO 2 particles through coordination interaction, and then thioacetamide was added to the dispersion. By heating, S 2− released and reacted with the Cd 2+ , CdS/SiO 2 composite microspheres were obtained accordingly. The photocatalytic properties of the as-prepared composite microspheres were investigated as well. It was found that the composite microspheres have excellent photocatalytic activities for the degradation of dyes comparing with the commercial P-25 TiO 2 catalysts. After using and recycling for three times, the photocatalytic performance still remained very well.