COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE PHOTOCATALYTIC ACTIVITY OF ZNS NANOPARTICLES SYNTHESIZED WITH DIFFERENT CAPPING AGENTS

ZnS nanoparticles are prepared by coprecipitation method using various capping agents like PVP (polyvinylpyrrolidone), PVA (polyvinylalcohol) and PEG-4000 (polyethyleneglycol). These are characterized by UV-Visible spectra, X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies, Fourier Transform Infra-red spectra (FTIR) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM). UV-Visible absorption spectra are used to find the optical band gap and the values obtained have been found to be in the range of 3.80-4.00eV. The particle size of nanoparticles calculated from XRD pattern has been in the range of 2-4 nm. It is also observed that the particle size of nanoparticle is affected by the nature of capping agent. Photo catalytic degradation of xylenol orange (XO) by the nanoparticles shows that these act as photo catalysts under sunlight irradiation. The XO dye was degraded more than 87.24, 83.42 and 73.05% in the presence of PEG-4000, PVA and PVP capped ZnS nanoparticles in 120, 150 and 180 min. respectively. The kinetics of catalyzed by synthesized ZnS nanoparticles with XO dye follows pseudo-first order kinetics with reasonable apparent rate constants