Development of Nickel loaded Cadmium Sulfide photocatalysts for photocatalytic water splitting hydrogen production and dye degradation applications

Abstract

newline Designing of artificial heterostructure photo-catalysts to crop solar energy for newlineH 2 evolution from water is of great importance nowadays. The ultrafine Ni (0.5, 1.0, newline2.0 and 5.0 wt%) particles loaded CdS nanorods were synthesized by a simple newlinechemical process. XRD shows the crystalline phase of CdS with increase in size from newline17 to 28 nm with 10.19 % and 10.06% enhancement in the lattice strain and the newlinedislocation density for Ni (0.5 to 5.0 wt%). The Reitveld Refinement of CdS and Ni newlinedoped CdS from XRD data by using FullProf software. Atomic fractional positions newlineand isothermal parameters are obtained. Reliability factors, lattice parameters, newlinecrystalline size, X-ray density and so forth. VESTA software obtained from Full Prof newlinestructural refinement of experimental results shows hexagonal structure of CdS and newlineNi doped CdS. The analysis of electron density mapping was conducted using the newlineGFourier software in the FullProf kit to simulate the distribution of electron densities newlinewithin a unit cell. The mechanism for growth involved in Ni doped CdS nanorods newlinehetero structure is defined. The XPS peaks observed at 854.88 eV and 861.07 eV for newlineNi 2+ with energy separation of 6.18 eV confirmed the existence of NiO on Ni surface. newlineThe Raman bands for pure CdS and Ni (1.0 wt%)-CdS nanorods were observed at 300 newlinecm -1 and 293 cm -1 for 1LO phonon and 601 cm -1 and 586 cm -1 for 2LO phonon, newlinerespectively. The Ni loading tuned the CdS band gap from 2.36 to 2.20 eV. The eight newlinefold enhancement in the CdS specific surface area i.e., from 4.19194 m 2 g and#8722;1 to 34.8343 newlinem 2 g and#8722;1 was achieved.