Enhanced photocatalytic activity of ZnS/TiO nanocomposite by nitrogen and tetrafluoromethane plasma treatments.

In the present study, the photocatalytic performance of ZnS/TiO nanocomposite was investigated through the photodegradation of Acid Blue 113 (AB113) dye under ultraviolet light exposure. TiO and ZnS-based nanocomposites suffer from relatively wide bandgap energy and low adsorption capacity which limit their photocatalytic applications. These problems can be suppressed by modifying the surface of nanocomposite particles by the non-thermal plasma. Herein, surface modification of the ZnS/TiO nanocomposite was performed using a dielectric-barrier discharge plasma under nitrogen (N) and tetrafluoromethane (CF) gases. The characteristics of the plasma-treated nanocomposites were evaluated by XRD, FTIR, Raman, FESEM, EDS, BET, BJH, and DRS analyses. According to the results, by applying plasma treatment, cation and anion vacancies are produced that reduces the band gap energy of the photocatalyst hence improves its performance. The results indicate that the photocatalytic efficiency of the N-plasma-treated nanocatalyst has been almost two times higher than that of the untreated ZnS/TiO. It was found that after 25 min of UV irradiation, the AB113 was almost completely degraded in the presence of N-plasma-treated ZnS/TiO nanocomposite (about 95%), whereas, it was degraded by 64% and 46% in the presence of CF-plasma-treated ZnS/TiO and untreated ZnS/TiO, respectively. This study presents a new approach to designing cost-effective plasma-treated photocatalysts to degrade organic contaminants in wastewater.