Study on the photocatalytic properties of semiconductor SnO2/CdS heterostructure nanocrystals

(Arik Kar, et al. RSC Adv., 2012, 2, 10222): In this work, we reported the photocatalytic properties of semiconductor SnO2/CdS heterostructures. A type-II SnO2/CdS heterostructure has been synthesized from a single-source precursor and its structure was determined using XRD, HRTEM, elemental mapping and line scan EDAX analysis. A time resolved spectroscopic study revealed the effective charge separation in this heterostructure and the mechanism of charge separation was proposed using a schematic model. It is observed that the conductivity is lower in the SnO2/CdS heterostructure compared to uncoated SnO2 nanorods due to efficient charge separation. The efficient charge separation in the SnO2/CdS heterostructure revealed its higher photocatalytic activity and the photocatalytic degradation of Congo red dye was found to be 97% and 20% for the SnO2/CdS heterostructure and SnO2nanorods respectively under UV light irradiation. I have presented two oral presentations onthis work at the 3rd European Conference on NanoFilms held at Sevilla, Spain and at theCambridge-Warsaw Young Scientist Meeting held at Department of Chemistry, University ofCambridge, UK. (Journal I.F=3.84, Total Citation-31).

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