Effect of γ-irradiation on adsorption and photocatalytic ability of MoS₂ nanomaterials

The ability of MoS2 nanomaterials as adsorbent and photocatalytic materials of methylene blue (MB) dye after [Formula: see text]-ray irradiation is investigated. The MoS2 nanomaterials are prepared by a simple hydrothermal route, and then irradiated with Co-60 gamma radioisotope at different doses of 1, 10, 100, 1000 kGy. All the samples are characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Diffusivity Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS) and Brunauer–Emmet–Teller (BET). The XRD analysis shows no change in crystal structure of MoS2 nanomaterials after irradiation. The DRS analysis indicates the optical bandgap increases from 1.73 to 1.82, 1.86, 1.94 and 2.00 eV, respectively. The performance of the dye-absorbing solutions and the photocatalytic dye solutions before and after irradiation is compared. After [Formula: see text]-ray irradiation, the adsorption capacity of the MoS2 nanomaterials degrades, which can be attributed to the decreased specific surface area, from 77.060 to 48.812, 35.855, 38.789 and 27.137 m2/g, respectively. The photocatalytic degradation ability for the MB solution also decreases due to the increase of optical bandgap of the samples after [Formula: see text]-ray irradiation.