Enhanced visible-light photocatalytic degradation of hazardous organic dyes by the MCM-41 supported Bi2S3/CdS heterostructure.

Water contamination by hazardous organic dyes raises major health and environmental issues, necessitating the development of effective and long-lasting treatment technologies. In this study, the Bi2S3/CdS (BS/CdS) heterostructure supported on mesoporous MCM-41 was fabricated via a facile and cost-effective hydrothermal method. The combination of CdS and Bi2S3 effectively tunes the band gap to the desired value, enabling the solar-driven photocatalysis. Moreover, the incorporation of MCM-41 with the Bi2S3/CdS composite enhances the surface area, structural stability, and charge carrier separation of the photocatalyst. Several electrochemical tests, including chronoamperometry (I-t), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), and Mott-Schottky analysis, were utilized to further validate the high capacity for charge transfer and the reduction of electron-hole recombination. Under visible light irradiation, the photodegradation of rhodamine B (RhB) dye was employed to assess the photocatalytic activity of the prepared samples. Among all samples, 10 MCM@BS/CdS exhibited the highest visible light degradation performance of 99.3%.