Synthesis and characterization of zinc sulfide nanomaterials for removal methylene blue dye from aqueous solution.

This work focused mainly on the synthesis and characterization of zinc sulfide nanocrystals using chemical co-precipitation approach. Zinc sulfide nanoparticles with quasi-spherical shape have been fabricated by controlling the concentration of the starting materials, reaction time and PH of the solution. The formation of zinc sulfide nanocrystals was confirmed through TEM, FE-SEM, XRD and EDS techniques. The band gap energy was measured from the UV-Visible spectrum and was found to be 3.8 eV, the observation of red shift with respect to the bulk ZnS is attributed to the effect of quantum confinement. The influences of ZnS nanoparticles concentration and the contact time on cationic dye adsorption, were investigated. The adsorption behavior of ZnS nanoparticles was demonstrated and it was found that ZnS particles have the ability to adsorb methylene blue dye (MB) from aqueous solution. It was found that with increasing amount of ZnS in the dye solution, the removing for MB increased. Moreover, enhancing in the time of shaking causing growing in the absorption of MB on the ZnS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]