Developments in visible-light active TiO2/SnX (X = S and Se) and their environmental photocatalytic applications – A mini-review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inoche.2021.108874Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Retardation in formation of the anatase phase in TiO2 / tin sulphide and selenides nano-composites.

  • TiO2 / tin sulphide and selenides nano-composites absorption extend to visible region.

  • Better activity of mixed phase composites as compared to the single-phase material.

  • Formation of heterojunctions enhance the life span of photoinduced charged carries.

Abstract

The development of novel semiconductor materials and their application as photocatalyst is the emerging area of scientific interest. The surface structures, light absorbance characteristics, charge separation and transfer ability, and stability of photocatalysts are directive aspects towards their efficiency. With these features in mind, a large number of materials have been reported, and amongst them, heterostructure composites of TiO2 with low band gap tin sulphide and selenides (SnX (X = S, Se), have drawn attractive interests to the scientific community. In this review we have emphasized on the alteration in characteristics of TiO2 when it makes composites with tin sulphide and selenides. It is found that narrow bandgap, unique electronic structure, and larger surface-to-volume ratio makes composites of TiO2 with SnX as potential candidates for environment purification. The addition of SnX (X = S, Se) in TiO2 affect the phase formation and morphology of the composites. The light absorption tendency and life span of photoinduced charged carrier was found better after the introduction of SnX in TiO2. All these characteristics directly or indirectly influence the performance of the photocatalysts. This review will enhance the knowledge of the emerging researchers about the influence of SnX (X = S, Se) on the structural, morphological, optical and photocatalytic characteristics of TiO2 that will help them in development of new composites materials possessing the improved photocatalytic activity.

Introduction

In the past few decades, the energy shortage and environmental pollution related issues emerging from the discharge of various industries organic effluents have been a matter of great concern for human society [1], [2], [3]. These organic pollutants are hazardous for humans as well as for animals, which rationalize their poor health. To overcome these environmental pollution issues, researchers across the globe have focused on developing innovative methods that are capable to remove completely these contaminants from the ecosystem [4], [5]. Photocatalysis, a green and environmentally friendly technique having wide range of applications (Fig. 1) emerges out as the best alternative over the conventional techniques to resolve the environmental contaminants problems [6], [7]. Although photocatalysis has a wide range of applications but its utility in water splitting and degradation of aqueous organic contaminants has gained more interest among the scientific community [8], [9], [10].

In the photocatalytic process, the semiconductor materials upon irradiation with a photon having energy equal or higher energy than its optical energy gap, produce charge species that decompose the toxic organic pollutants into non-toxic compounds [11]. For the practical industrial applications of the semiconductor photocatalysts, their strong absorption in the wide range of spectrum and long life span of charge carriers are indispensable requirements [12], [13]. Metal oxide such as zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, bismuth oxide, tin oxide, and copper oxide etc. are promising materials having a wide range of potential applications in the field of photocatalysis and photoelectrochemical [14], [15], [16], [17], [18]. Among the different semiconductor materials, TiO2 is the most broadly used photocatalyst due to its chemical stability, low toxicity, environmentally friendly nature, better absorption, and reusability [19], [20], [21], [22].

Due to its wide optical band gap of 3.2 eV, it activates only in the ultraviolet (UV) region and possesses little efficiency to harvest solar energy. To overcome such disadvantage of TiO2, some strategies like modification in geometry (e.g. nanosheet, nanoribbon, nanotube, nanoparticles etc.), surface area and porosity increase, and introduction of metal, non-metal, noble metal, or formation of heterostructure with other semiconductor materials as shown in Fig. 2 have been demonstrated successfully [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29]. Among the above-mentioned modification strategy, the mixing of TiO2 with economical, earth-abundant and narrow band gap MXSY or MXOY based materials such as CdS, SnS, Fe2O3, CuO, PbS, CdTe, SnS2, ZnS, CdSe, Bi2O3 etc. have attracted the massive scientific interest for their exceptional and valuable optical, photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic applications [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35].

Among them, chalcogenides of Cd are most widely used as photocatalyst but due to their toxic nature, they are dangerous for the environment and human health [36]. The chalcogenides of tin has in recent times emerged as an alternative solution compared to Cd based due to its several advantages such as less toxicity, earth abundance, chemically stability, cost-effective, possessing unique structural properties and strong absorption in the visible region [37]. Tin sulfides occur in phases such as SnS (tin sulfide) and SnS2 (tin disulfide) with variable coordination numbers and oxidation states of + 2 and + 4 with associated respective p and n-type conductivity. In the Sn2S3 phase, Sn is present in both + 2 and + 4 oxidation states with n-type conductivity [38]. SnS, SnS2 have been broadly used in tin chalcogenides due to their novel optical and structural properties. Yang et al. [39] found that the nanoflakes of SnS2 prepared using SnCl2 and excess sulfur powder give better photocatalytic activity for the decomposition of methyl orange under the illumination of solar light. The coupling of SnS2 with wide band gap SnO2 semiconductor gives superior catalytic performance than that of individual SnS2 and SnO2 photocatalyst [40]. Due to various advantages of SnX (X = S, Se), the various preparation methods in different synthesis conditions have been adopted to obtain the multipurpose TiO2 composite with SnX (X = S, Se) for their interesting novel properties. In this review, we discuss the various design and synthesis strategies of the TiO2/ SnX (X = S, Se) composites with the special emphasis on variation in the structural, morphological, optical and photocatalytic activity of the TiO2/SnX composites. The effect of synthesis conditions and the addition of different precursors are highlighted in designing such TiO2/Sn based composites. We envisage that the availability of such comprehensive focussed literature insights will be beneficial as the basis for further development strategies of designing highly efficient semiconductor materials for water purification.

Section snippets

TiO2/SnS and TiO2/SnS2 heterostructure materials and properties

Tin and its compounds with sulfur such as SnS, Sn4S5, Sn3S4, Sn2S3, SnS2, etc. are non-toxic, environment-friendly, chemically stable and possessing better catalytic properties are widely used in the different fields of research [41], [42]. Among the different forms of tin sulfides, SnS and SnS2 are cost-effective, more earth-abundant and stable in both acidic and alkaline mediums. Due to the narrow energy gap and their layered structural features, the sulfur containing Sn compounds have many

TiO2/SnSe and TiO2/SnSe2 heterostructure materials and properties

Tin monoselenide (SnSe), diselenide (SnSe2) and Sn2Se3 are three major stoichiometric forms of tin selenide system which belong to the IV-VI group [86]. Several defects in the SnSe structure can be created by the Se-interstitial (Sei), Se-vacancy (VSe), Sn-interstitial (Sni) and Sn -vacancy (VSn). Such defects create the different energy levels which absorb radiation from near infrared and visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum and strongly influenced the electronic and optical

Photocatalytic activities

Intrinsic parameters like surface defect, crystal phase, band potentials and doping, etc. and extrinsic such as temperature, charge on the catalyst surface, catalyst dosage, concentration and pH of the solution significantly influence the photocatalytic efficiency of the nano-composites. Catalyst loading is an important factor for application on commercial scale and at high catalyst loading activity decreases due to sedimentation of particles and scattering of light while at low catalyst

Conclusions

The progress of the UV visible light-driven composites of TiO2/SnX (X = S and Se) are summarized in this review for the photocatalytic oxidation of organic molecules. Some traditional and novel cost-effective typical routes for the designing of TiO2/SnX (X = S and Se) possessing high photoconversion efficiency are also discussed. It is found that both surfactant and solvent affect the shape, size and morphology of nanocomposite. The phase formation of composite is also affected by the pH of the

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Shankar Sharma: Writing – original draft. Anuj Mittal: Writing – review & editing. Nar Singh Chauhan: Investigation, Writing – review & editing. Peter R. Makgwane: Writing – review & editing. Kavitha Kumari: Writing – review & editing. Sanjeev Maken: Visualization. Naveen Kumar: Project administration, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

One of the author SS is thankful to University Grant Commission, New Delhi, India for financial help in the form of SRF.

Shankar Sharma is the doctorate student under the supervision of Dr. Naveen Kumar in the Department of Chemistry, Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, India. He has completed his master degree from the same department and is currently working in the field of material chemistry and published many articles in the reputed journals.

References (131)

  • M. Khairy et al.

    Effect of metal-doping of TiO2 nanoparticles on their photocatalytic activities toward removal of organic dyes

    Egypt. J. Pet.

    (2014)
  • Y. Hanifehpour et al.

    A novel visible-light Nd-doped CdTe photocatalyst for degradation of Reactive Red 43: Synthesis, characterization, and photocatalytic properties

    J. Rare Earths

    (2016)
  • M. Iqbal et al.

    Photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutant with nanosized cadmium sulfide

    Mater. Sci. Energy Technol.

    (2019)
  • W. Ren et al.

    Functional CdS nanocomposites recovered from biomineralization treatment of sulfate wastewater and its applications in the perspective of photocatalysis and electrochemistry

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (2020)
  • Z. Ye et al.

    A comparative study of photocatalytic activity of ZnS photocatalyst for degradation of various dyes

    Optik.

    (2018)
  • C. Yang et al.

    Preparation and photocatalytic activity of high-efficiency visible-light-responsive photocatalyst SnSx/TiO2

    J. Solid State Chem.

    (2009)
  • X.-L. Gou et al.

    Synthesis, characterization and application of SnSx (x=1, 2) nanoparticles

    Mater. Chem. Phys.

    (2005)
  • K. Xue et al.

    Photoredox catalysis of As(III) by constructed C Sn S bonds: Using biomass as templates leads to bio-carbon/SnS2 nanosheets capable of the efficient photocatalytic conversion of As(III) and calcium arsenate capture

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (2020)
  • K. Yao et al.

    One-step synthesis of urchinlike SnS/SnS2 heterostructures with superior visible-light photocatalytic performance

    Catal. Commun.

    (2017)
  • Y.C. Zhang et al.

    Novel synthesis and high visible light photocatalytic activity of SnS2 nanoflakes from SnCl2·2H2O and S powders

    Appl. Catal. B

    (2010)
  • Q. Li et al.

    Fabrication of layered nanocrystallites SnS and β-SnS2 via a mild solution route

    Mater. Res. Bull.

    (2002)
  • M. Cheraghizade et al.

    Charge transportation mechanisms in TiO2/SnS/Ag solar cells

    Mater. Res. Bull.

    (2020)
  • J. Kois et al.

    The cost-effective deposition of ultra-thin titanium(IV) oxide passivating layers for improving photoelectrochemical activity of SnS electrodes

    Thin Solid Films

    (2019)
  • X. Xin et al.

    Management on the location and concentration of Ti3+ in anatase TiO2 for defects-induced visible-light photocatalysis

    Appl. Catal. B

    (2015)
  • G. Lu et al.

    Ultrastable photodegradation of formaldehyde under fluorescent lamp irradiation by anti-reflection structure SnS2/TiO2 composite

    J. Photochem. Photobiol. A

    (2018)
  • W. Ren et al.

    SnS 2 nanosheets arrays sandwiched by N-doped carbon and TiO 2 for high-performance Na-ion storage

    Green Energy Environ.

    (2018)
  • Y. Wang et al.

    CdS and SnS2 nanoparticles co-sensitized TiO2 nanotube arrays and the enhanced photocatalytic property

    J. Photochem. Photobiol., A

    (2016)
  • X. Hu et al.

    Promotional role of nano TiO2 for pomegranate-like SnS2@C spheres toward enhanced sodium ion storage

    Chem. Eng. J.

    (2019)
  • Y. Wu et al.

    Exploring structural stability mechanism of TiO2 encapsulated in 3D flower-like SnS2 anode for lithium ion batteries

    J. Electroanal. Chem.

    (2020)
  • F. Yang et al.

    Improved photodegradation activity of TiO2 via decoration with SnS2 nanoparticles

    Mater. Chem. Phys.

    (2013)
  • J. Li et al.

    Preparation of visible light-driven SnS2/TiO2 nanocomposite photocatalyst for the reduction of aqueous Cr(VI)

    Sep. Purif. Technol.

    (2012)
  • Z. Xiu et al.

    Recent advances in Ti3+ self-doped nanostructured TiO2 visible light photocatalysts for environmental and energy applications

    Chem. Eng. J.

    (2020)
  • S. Tan et al.

    Ti3+-TiO2/g-C3N4 mesostructured nanosheets heterojunctions as efficient visible-light-driven photocatalysts

    J. Catal.

    (2018)
  • M.T. Islam et al.

    Development of photocatalytic paint based on TiO2 and photopolymer resin for the degradation of organic pollutants in water

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (2020)
  • H. Li et al.

    Preparation of SnS quantum dots for solar cells application by an in-situ solution chemical reaction process

    Mater. Sci. Semicond. Process.

    (2015)
  • B. Pejjai et al.

    Status review on earth-abundant and environmentally green Sn-X (X = Se, S) nanoparticle synthesis by solution methods for photovoltaic applications

    Int. J. Hydrogen Energy

    (2017)
  • A.M. Saray et al.

    Improvement visible-light photocatalytic performance of single-crystalline SnSe1±x NPs toward degradation of organic pollutants

    Solid State Sci.

    (2019)
  • E. Kharatzadeh et al.

    The effects of S-doping concentration on the photocatalytic performance of SnSe/S-GO nanocomposites

    Adv. Powder Technol.

    (2021)
  • M.S. Nasir et al.

    Tin diselinide a stable co-catalyst coupled with branched TiO2 fiber and g-C3N4 quantum dots for photocatalytic hydrogen evolution

    Appl. Catal. B

    (2020)
  • B. Pejova et al.

    Chemical synthesis, structural and optical properties of quantum sized semiconducting tin(II) selenide in thin film form

    Thin Solid Films

    (2007)
  • L.L. Ma et al.

    The fabrication of SnSe/Ag nanoparticles on TiO2 nanotubes

    Mater. Sci. Eng., B

    (2013)
  • M.S. Nasir et al.

    Tin diselenide nanoflakes decorated hierarchical 1D TiO2 fiber: A robust and highly efficient co-catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction

    Appl. Surf. Sci.

    (2020)
  • M. Rani et al.

    Degradation of traditional and new emerging pesticides in water by nanomaterials: recent trends and future recommendations

    Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol.

    (2018)
  • Y. Deng et al.

    Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOPs) in Wastewater Treatment

    Curr Pollution Rep.

    (2015)
  • J.F.J.R. Pesqueira et al.

    A life cycle assessment of solar-based treatments (H2O2, TiO2 photocatalysis, circumneutral photo-Fenton) for the removal of organic micropollutants

    Sci. Total Environ.

    (2020)
  • B. Sun et al.

    Synthesis of Particulate Hierarchical Tandem Heterojunctions toward Optimized Photocatalytic Hydrogen Production

    Adv. Mater.

    (2018)
  • W. Zhou et al.

    Ordered Mesoporous Black TiO 2 as Highly Efficient Hydrogen Evolution Photocatalyst

    J. Am. Chem. Soc.

    (2014)
  • F. Zhang et al.

    Recent Advances and Applications of Semiconductor Photocatalytic Technology

    Appl. Sci.

    (2019)
  • J. Schneider et al.

    Understanding TiO 2 Photocatalysis: Mechanisms and Materials

    Chem. Rev.

    (2014)
  • V. Kumari et al.

    Hydrothermally synthesized nano-carrots ZnO with CeO2 heterojunctions and their photocatalytic activity towards different organic pollutants

    J. Mater. Sci. Mater. Electron.

    (2020)
  • Cited by (0)

    Shankar Sharma is the doctorate student under the supervision of Dr. Naveen Kumar in the Department of Chemistry, Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, India. He has completed his master degree from the same department and is currently working in the field of material chemistry and published many articles in the reputed journals.

    Dr. Anuj Mittal done his Ph.D under the supervision of Dr. Naveen Kumar from Department of Chemistry, Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, India in July, 2020. His area of interest is application of semiconductor materials for environmental applications and published more than 20 articles in the reputed journals.

    Dr. N.S. Chauhan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Maharshi Dayanand University Rohtak, India. For the past 15 years, he is pursuing research in the area of material science and system biology. He has published dozens of scientific papers on the synthesis and characterization of nanomaterials and microbial system biology.

    Dr. Peter R. Makgwane is currently a principal scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of South Africa and associate professor at the chemistry department of the University of the Western Cape (UWC). He previously worked for Mintek and Sasol petroleum as a scientist. His research interests include mainly heterogeneous catalysis and photocatalysis with respect to nanomaterials design for their applications in renewable chemicals conversion, environmental remediation and gas chemical sensing.

    Kavitha Kumari is a doctorate student in the Department of Chemistry, Deenbandhu Chottu Ram University of Science and Technology, Murthal, Sonipat. Her area of interest is the thermodynamic characterization and materials chemistry. 

    Prof. Sanjeev Maken worked as Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Deenbandhu Chottu Ram University of Science and Technology, Murthal, Sonipat. He worked in Korean Institute of Chem. Eng. Seoul under Brain Pool Programme, South Korea. She also worked as an invited researcher/scientist in University of Minho, Portugal. He research interest is CO2 Absorption, Solution thermodynamics and modeling, thin oxide films, Waste-to-Energy. He has published more than 130 articles in the journal of high repute.

    Dr. Naveen Kumar is working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry, Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, India for last 11 years. He is actively engaged in the researh for last 17 years and his keen area of research interest materials chemistry and mainly working in area of synthesis and application of nano-composite materials. He also worked in Department of applied Physics, University of Politechnica, Valencia, Spain in an international research project entitled as “Development of a new generation CIGS based Solar cells”. He has published more than 40 research articles in the journals of high repute.

    View full text