Photocatalytic applications of Cr₂S₃ synthesized from single and multi-source precursors

Most of the material research work is pertinent to the synthesis of transition-metal sulfides nanoparticles but here the studies are limited to the synthesis of chromium sulfide. However, the preparation method, presented in this work, may be extended to other metal chalcogenides nanoparticles for various potential applications. The ligand (precursor), 1-(2-chloro-4-nitrophenyl)-3,3-chlorobenzoyl and Cr₂S₃ have been synthesized initially from single source precursor and then from multi source precursors. The target was to alter the morphologies of nanomaterial while altering the synthetic route and that was successfully achieved. Chromium sulfide nano-rods were synthesized using single source precursors while nanoparticles were fabricated using multi source precursors. Characterization were carried out through ¹H and ¹³C NMR, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), powder X-ray diffraction microscopy (PXRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Our objective is to change the morphologies by changing the synthetic route so that is why further applications were done only for multi-source product, denying single source product. The metal sulfides nanoparticles exhibit higher activity than their bulk material for the photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes under visible-light irradiation. So, photocatalytic activity was successfully achieved under direct sunlight against five different cationic and anionic organic dyes including malachite green (MG), methylene blue (MB), rhodamine B (RhB), methyl violet (MV) and methyl orange (MO). These organic dyes MV, MG, MB, and RB were almost diminished or decolorized by Cr₂S₃ within 110, 90, 100, and 130, minutes, respectively expect MO.