Facile Synthesis of Uniform Zinc-blende ZnS Nanospheres with Excellent Photocatalytic Activity toward Methylene Blue Degradation

Uniform and well-dispersed Zn S nanospheres have been successfully synthesized via a facile chemical route. The crystal structure, morphology, surface area and photocatalytic properties of the sample were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction（XRD）, scanning electron microscopy（SEM）, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller（BET） and ultraviolet-visible（UV-vis） spectrum. The results of characterizations indicate that the products are identified as mesoporous zinc-blende ZnS nanospheres with an average diameter of 200 nm, which are comprised of nanoparticles with the crystallite size of about 3.2 nm calculated by XRD. Very importantly, photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue（MB） shows that the as-prepared Zn S nanospheres exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity with nearly 100% of MB decomposed after UV-light irradiation for 25 min. The excellent photocatalytic activity of ZnS nanospheres can be ascribed to the large specific surface area and hierarchical mesoporous structure.