Trace carbon-hybridized ZnS/ZnO hollow nanospheres with multi-enhanced visible-light photocatalytic performance.

Abstract Herein, sucrose-derived hydrothermal carbon spheres have been chosen as the hard template to successfully synthesize the ZnO hollow spheres with trace C remained (denoted as C/ZnO) via the facile adsorption and calcination. By subsequent sulfuration reaction, partial of ZnO in the C/ZnO can convert to ZnS, thus yielding the ternary composites C/ZnS/ZnO. It is found that the resultant ZnS content in the C/ZnS/ZnO hollow nanospheres catalysts could be tuned by the sulfuration time, which greatly affects the photocatalytic activity. Particularly, the C/ZnS/ZnO sample with 30 min sulfuration treatment exhibits the best photocatalytic activity toward the photodegradation of tetracycline (TC) under visible light irradiation. Compared with the commercial ZnO and C/ZnO, both the trace C and ZnS are proved to improve the surface electron-transfer efficiency of the C/ZnS/ZnO hollow nanospheres. Meanwhile, its intrinsic hollow structure also successfully increases the light-harvesting efficiency. As a result, the C/ZnS/ZnO hollow nanospheres are verified to have the multi-enhanced photocatalytic performance. Graphical abstract Image 1 Highlights • Novel hollow C/ZnS/ZnO nanospheres have been successfully constructed. • The hollow structure increases the light-harvesting efficiency. • Sulfuration time tunes ZnS content and affects photocatalytic properties. • The hole (h+) is the main reactive species in the photodegradation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]