Effect of γ-irradiation on adsorption and photocatalytic ability of MoS<subscript>2</subscript> nanomaterials.

The ability of MoS 2 nanomaterials as adsorbent and photocatalytic materials of methylene blue (MB) dye after γ -ray irradiation is investigated. The MoS 2 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 MoS 2 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 γ -ray irradiation, the adsorption capacity of the MoS 2 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 m 2 /g, respectively. The photocatalytic degradation ability for the MB solution also decreases due to the increase of optical bandgap of the samples after γ -ray irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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