Synthesis and Characterization of Silver Sulfide Photocatalyst and Catalytic Effects of Surface Thickness

Tan, Yoke Yin (2017) Synthesis and Characterization of Silver Sulfide Photocatalyst and Catalytic Effects of Surface Thickness. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Silver sulfide (Ag2S) nanoparticles are the narrow-band gap semiconductors that have good chemical stability and great optical limiting properties which make it effective in photocatalytic applications. The objectives of this study are to synthesize the nano-sized Ag2S photocatalyst by using less silver contents and sulfur nanoparticles and to characterize the Ag2S nanoparticles using SEM, TEM and EDS. This study also investigates the catalytic effects of the surface thickness of Ag2S nanoparticles under simulated solar irradiation. Ag2S nanoparticles were synthesized by using simple precipitation method. In this method, sodium thiosulfate, alginate, acetic acid and silver nitrate were used to synthesize the Ag2S nanoparticles at ambient temperature. The morphology of Ag2S nanoparticles was observed by SEM and TEM, while the elemental analysis of Ag2S nanoparticles was performed by EDS. The adsorption of dye on the Ag2S nanoparticles was studied by using UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The photocatalytic activity of Ag2S photocatalyst was performed by the simulated solar irradiation. It was concluded that core-shell nanoparticles (S: core; Ag2S: shell) were prepared in this study. For the photocatalytic activity of Ag2S photocatalyst, the results show that the Ag2S catalyst with least amount of silver was found to be the most effective photocatalyst which has degraded the methylene blue solution with 20.40 % under simulated solar radiation condition