Doping Dependent Structural, Optical, Thermal and Catalysis Properties of Synthesized Cadmium Sulfide Nanoparticles

A simple and cost-effective route has been employed to synthesize undoped and copper doped (2, 4 and 6) % cadmium sulfide (CdS) nanoparticles. Resulting materials were characterized by various techniques as XRD results confirmed the formation of hexagonal crystal structure for doped and undoped CdS nanoparticles with crystallite size varying from 11-17 nm calculated by Sherrer equation. The Williamson Hall (W-H) plot is used to examine particle size and lattice strain of prepared pure and Cu doped CdS nanoparticles and compared the particle size with Sherrer equation. Moreover, significantly reduced the intensity of diffraction is also evident accompanied by slight peak-shifting towards higher angles. Agglomerated spherical morphology of the CdS nanoparticles with decreasing particle size upon Cu doping was observed by SEM. FTIR spectra was found to consist of stretching vibrations from Cd-S and other related groups with negligible changes in the vibrational modes upon doping. The UV-Vis analysis demonstrates a significant increase in absorption intensity upon doping along with slight blue shift leading to an increased bandgap for doped CdS. The Raman spectroscopy measurement was performed on nanoparticles and thermal properties in different environment were investigated by DSC/TGA. These studies represent a cost-effective way to prepare CdS and related materials with tunable bandgap. This report highlights the effect of bared and various concentrations of Cu doped CdS nanoparticles in the degradation of cationic dye methylene blue by NaBH4.