Chemically synthesized Sb2S3 hollow-spheres for significantly fast and reliable visible light driven dye photodegradation

Sb2S3 hollow-spheres have been synthesized through a facile chemical route that exhibited high specific surface area with broadband absorption of light over the visible region after annealing. This makes it a suitable candidate for photocatalytic applications towards the degradation of dye based water pollutants. The valance band and conduction band of the synthesized semiconductor are also positioned appropriately (w.r.t NHE) to facilitate the required redox reactions with water in presence of the photogenerated excitons. Rapid and reliable photodegradation performance has been observed toward cationic, anionic and neutral aqueous dye solutions. The reliability factor was more than 90% in degradation efficiency after 50 measured cycles for all the three cases. [GRAPHICS] photodegradation. The reliability studies yielded encouraging results even after 50th cycle of photodegradation. The effect of catalyst loading on the photodegradation efficacy has also been studied. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.